Soccer superstar Lionel Messi has scored a record-breaking 91 goals in the 2012 calendar year, breaking the German Gerd Mueller’s 40-year-old record of 85 goals in a calendar year.

Messi scored 79 goals for the world famous team FC Barcelona, and 12 for his national team, Argentina. He scored his 91st goal against Vallodolid while playing for Barcelona on December 22 in a 3-1 victory. Messi scored 78 goals from within the penalty area, and 14 goals from penalty kicks. He scored all ten penalty kicks taken for Barcelona in La Liga, and made two out of three penalty kicks taken for Barcelona in the Champions League. However, the miss was an important one, because it would have given Barcelona the lead against Chelsea in the semifinals, who went on to win the championship.

“Messi is living in a generation where more goals are being scored than not. Not taking anything away from this remarkable feat, I must say that the Brazilian Ronaldo would have scored twice as much had he been playing this season during his prime,” said senior Khalid Abdin.

Messi scored twice in 22 games and did not score at all in the same amount of matches. He had nine hat tricks, scored four times in a match twice, and had a Champions League-record of five goals against Bayer Leverkusen.

“It’s just one of the many things he will accomplish in his career. I think he will be able to accomplish the feat of best forward ever to live,” said junior Daniel Yacar. He continued, “However, to a certain extent, Messi wouldn’t be able to accomplish everything he has without the help of the greatest team in the world.”

Lionel Messi is often considered the best player in the world, rivaled only by the Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.

“Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player in the world because even though he’s a winger he can score 60 goals and lead his team to titles. That is something Messi can’t do because he can’t bring his team to any titles,” said senior Wilmer Montesdeoca.

“Well I won’t say that Cristiano Ronaldo has more worth to his team than Messi, but he has a greater skill set than Messi does,” said Khalid.

Senior Muhammad Altaf said, “There’s not much you can say about Messi. He’s just amazing.”

“I don’t know anything about soccer, but I do   know that Messi is an extraordinary soccer player,” said senior Christopher Jordan.