Photo credit: www.skysports.com
According to Espn online news, Barcelona crashed out of the Champions League at the hands of Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night, and it brought a personal milestone to forget for star striker Lionel Messi.
Messi became just the second Argentina player in history to score 50 international goals after netting against Bolivia during the international break, a strike which left him on 499 career goals for club and country.
But Messi is still waiting to hit the magical 500-goal mark after his return to Barcelona duty, failing to score against Real Madrid, Atletico (twice) and Real Sociedad.
The drought actually goes back to before the break for World Cup qualifying,with Messi's last Barca goal coming against Arsenal on March 16, before he then drew a blank against Villarreal in La Liga.
He has now gone five Barca games without scoring a goal.
It is 452 minutes since he last netted a goal, the longest run since 2010 (when he went 474 minutes without scoring). He will surpass the 2010 mark if he doesn't score in the first 23 minutes on Sunday when Valencia visit the Camp Nou.
And Messi has a habit of going off the boil around April.
That 2010 run began on April 10, and he has also had lengthy droughts in the March-April period in 2014 (420 minutes) and 2015 (362 minutes).
So, as well as in 2010, Messi has gone on extended goalless runs at the end of each of the past three seasons.
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