At the time of writing, Lionel Messi is sitting on 99 international goals for Argentina.
For context, the country’s previous top goalscorer was Gabriel Batistuta with 54, a tally Messi surpassed in 2016.
Messi is also the highest-scoring South American in history, surpassing Pele’s 77 goals with a hat-trick against Bolivia in September, 2021
And now, 101GreatGoals have taken a look at which countries Lionel Messi has scored the most goals against.
5: Mexico (4)
Messi has found the net on four occasions vs Mexico. His latest strike was a stunning long-range effort at the 2022 World Cup when Argentina ran out 2-0 winners in a Group C clash:
4= Venezuela, Paraguay, Estonia, Chile, Brazil (5)
Messi has scored five goals against five different teams for Argentina throughout his career, with all of the countries from South America.
2= Uruguay & Ecuador (6)
Lionel Messi has faced Uruguay 12 times throughout his career. Eight of those games have come in World Cup qualifying matches and that is where Messi netted his six efforts.
As for Ecuador, Messi scored five of his six goals in seven WC qualifiers, with the remaining goal coming during the 2021 Copa America. He also provided two assists in said match.
1: Bolivia (8)
Lionel Messi has scored the most international goals vs Bolivia. The majority of these, including a hat-trick in 2016, were in World Cup qualifiers. But Messi also netted a brace vs Bolivia in the group stages of the latest Copa America.
How likely are Arsenal to win the Premier League? Using history to predict 2022/23 winner
