The 7 clubs Lionel Messi has faced and never scored or assisted against
Over the past 21 years, Lionel Messi has played a lot of football matches, made a lot of assists, and scored a lot of goals. In fact, there are literally only seven clubs that Messi has faced and not either scored against or provided an assist against.
That’s absolutely wild, frankly. It’s an extremely exclusive club of clubs, and one that should be given its flowers, we think.
We’ve identified those seven clubs in the list below. Note this is specific to Messi’s senior career. Barcelona B and youth level matches don’t count, otherwise there would be an extra ten or eleven clubs to add to the list. Just before you hit us with the ‘well, actually, I think you’ll find…’
Udinese
Messi has faced Udinese once in his career—a Champions League group match in 2005, when he was 18 years old. Barca won 4-1 without Messi registering a goal or assist, but Ronaldinho did pop up with a hat-trick. Deco grabbed the other and Samuel Eto’o notched an assist.
Absolute cheat code team.
Udinese played the majority of the second half with ten men after midfielder Vidigal was sent off but, to be honest, they were already 3-1 down and Barca had the luxury of bringing Andres Iniesta and Henrik Larsson on from the bench so… you know.
It wasn’t looking good for Le Zebrette regardless.
Toronto FC
Bit more recent, this one. Messi got injured 37 minutes into Inter Miami’s MLS game with Toronto. His replacement, the confusingly Finnish-born-and-bred Robert Taylor, scored twice in a 4-0 win.
This game featured Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Federico Bernardeschi, Lorenzo Insigne, DeAndre Yedlin, Josef Martinez, and Michael Bradley.
Not sure how much tickets were selling for, but worth the entrance fee, you’d think.
Bordeaux
Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, and Leandro Paredes grabbed a goal each in Messi’s stead during a regulation 3-0 win over Bordeaux in March 2022.
PSG won the league by 15 points and scored 90 goals, which, to be honest, is the bare minimum requirement you’d expect from a front three of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, and Neymar Jr.
Having said that, they only won it by a singular point the following season with the same front three. Lax, in our opinion. Careless. Lens were great, but come one, lads.
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D.C. United
It was a meeting of two immovable forces adorned with captains’ armbands when D.C. United made the trip to Florida. Lionel Messi vs Christian Benteke.
Obviously, we’re being a little bit silly and mean there but, as it turned out, there wasn’t much between these sides as an Inter Miami team boasting Messi, Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba, and Sergio Busquets in their starting lineup just about saw off United, 1-0.
Busquets provided the assist for Leonardo Campana in the 94th minute, cue wild celebrations and Campana receiving a booking for taking his shirt off.
We reckon you shouldn’t get booked for that if you score a 94th-minute winner.
Rubin Kazan
Kazan are a bit of a bogey team for Leo. He’s played them four times without scoring or assisting a single goal. By Messi standards, that’s outrageous.
Not only did Messi not score or assist, but Barcelona only actually won one of those four matches. A 2-1 away loss was followed by a 0-0 home draw in the 2009-10 Champions League group stage.
The following season, Messi had moved into the false 9 position and the Blaugrana managed a 1-1 away draw, followed by a 2-0 home win.
Messi only played half an hour in those last two games, however, having presumably become aware of his Kazan curse and sacrificing himself on behalf of the team.
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every team Lionel Messi has scored 5+ goals against?
CF Montreal
Inter Miami fell 2-0 behind in this MLS match before rising from the dead to snatch a 3-2 victory. The main thing we’re taking from this game, though, is that Matias Rojas must be the best free-kick taker on the planet.
Messi played the full 90 minutes, yet Rojas scored directly from a free kick. Amongst many other things, Lionel Messi is one of the best free-kick takers of all time.
How f*kcing good is Rojas if he’s even been afforded the opportunity to take one, let alone score the winning goal in an epic comeback as Messi watches?
The man must be the Paraguayan Beckham, the Asuncion Juninho Pernambucano, the MLS Sinisa Mihajlovic…
UDA Gramenet
Leo was brought into the Barca first team for a Copa Del Rey fixture with UDA Gramenet of the Segundo Division back in October 2004.
The Blaugrana fielded a strong XI featuring Xavi, Iniesta, Henrik Larsson, Carles Puyol, Rafa Marquez, and Ludovic Giuly. They even brought Samuel Eto’o off the bench.
It wasn’t enough, though, and Gramenet emerged as 1-0 winners. Hell of an upset. Messi was only 17, but that must have hurt.