Lionel Messi scored all five of Argentina’s goals as they continued their fine form by thrashing Estonia in a friendly in Pamplona, Spain.
The Argentines swept aside Italy 3-0 in the Finalissima – a game between the champions of Europe and South America – on Wednesday.
Messi provided two assists in that game and he was once again in vintage form.
He opened the scoring with a penalty and then struck two more goals in either half to complete the rout.
It is the first time the 34-year-old has scored five in a game for his country. In fact, he has only ever achieved the feat once before in his career, in a 7-1 win for Barcelona over Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League in 2012.
His third against Estonia, two minutes after half-time, took him level on 84 goals with Ferenc Puskas as the fourth highest-scorer in the history of men’s international football.
Fourteen minutes later, his fourth of the game meant he had surpassed the legendary Hungarian and now holds that position outright, behind only Malaysia’s Mokhtar Dahari (89), Iran’s Ali Daei (109) and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo (117).
He would have been closer still to Ronaldo, but the Portuguese scored twice in his country’s Nations League win against Switzerland on Sunday.
Source: BBC
