The happiest year of his career: Messi’s 2022 summary

The year 2022 was special for a variety of athletes and clubs. Starting with Arling Holland who left the incubator in Dortmund and began to pierce nets in England, Maccabi Haifa and the magical campaign in Europe, or even the tremendous pride of the Moroccan team that reached the semi-finals of the World Cup. But with all due respect to those listed above, there is only one person whose year 2022 will be remembered in the history books as the most significant year in his life – Leo Messi.

After arriving in Paris in the summer of 2021 and experiencing a difficult year, it already seemed that the move to the City of Lights was a failed final chord, but the flea taught us again why he is one of a kind and displayed an unforgettable ability, culminating in winning the World Cup with Argentina. How great was Messi’s year you ask? Here are the flea numbers for 2022.

With Paris Saint-Germain, the flea played 28 games in which he scored 12 goals and added 20 assists, some from the 2021/22 season and the rest from the current season. In the middle of the year, he won the championship with Neymar and Kylian Mbappe and also in the French Super Cup against Nantes, where Messi scored the first goal 0:4 in front of the excited fans at Bloomfield Stadium, but not everything was rosy.

Leo Messi (Reuters)

In the round of 16 of the 2021/22 French Cup, he was eliminated by Nice in a penalty shootout, but the elimination that hurts the most is surely the elimination at home against Real Madrid in the Champions League, after his team won the first match 0:1. This year it is already different, and in five of the six group stage games in which he participated, Messi scored four goals and assisted the same number. In the next stage it is no longer Maccabi Haifa, but Bayern Munich that awaits him in the round of 16.

In the Albiceleste uniform it was already a completely different story. The flea’s 2022 with the Argentina national team will undoubtedly be an unforgettable year for him. Messi played a total of 14 games, scored 18 goals and provided six assists. Argentina’s number 10 spent 1,264 minutes on the field in the national team uniform, where he also had 75 kicks (39 per frame). In addition, he won 10 games, drew three and lost just once – on his debut in Qatar against none other than Saudi Arabia.

The flea also played in four friendly games this year in which he scored eight goals and assisted one, including five in the victory against Estonia last June. Even in the finals, Messi did not disappear and although he did not score, he made a “little” contribution in the form of two assists against the Italian team.

But the icing on the cake is the most important. The flea reached the peak of its glory in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Along with his teammates Emiliano Martinez and Nicolas Otamendi, Messi completed the trio that played every minute of the World Cup for Argentina, scoring seven goals and providing three assists. Needless to say who was chosen as MVP of the tournament.

The most important thing in the year of the flea, is Messi’s character. He was the captain, leader and symbol of the team, he showed the world that dreams can come true, that there is a happy ending sometimes. Now he can finally rest easy, because what he achieved at the beginning of December 2022 is etched in the history books. The eighth golden ball on the way?