Messi garners 30th career hat tricks

Lionel Messi (28, FC Barcelona) has set off competition for hat tricks with Cristiano Ronaldo (30, Real Madrid).

In an away match against Deportivo La Coruña as the 19th round of the 2014-2015 Spanish Primera Liga in La Coruña, Spain on Monday (Korea time), Messi led Barcelona to 4-1 victory by triumphantly scoring two goals in the first half and one goal in the second. Messi scored his first goal by a header at 10th minute in the first half, before scoring the second through a shot that slightly went over the goalie’s height at 33rd minute. He scored the third goal with a beautiful left foot kick at 17th minute in the second half to achieve a hat trick. It was his 30th career hat trick and 22nd in the Primera Liga.

Messi has narrowed the difference to just one in the overall number of hat tricks in the Primera Liga against Ronaldo. Ronaldo is still leading by a large margin in the goal rankings in the league. Ronaldo with 28 goals widened the goal difference to nine against Messi, who is ranking second, as the former is making seamless headway towards becoming the top scorer for two consecutive years.

Real Madrid and FC Barcelona rank first and second in the league with score points of 45 (15 wins and three losses), and 44 (14 wins, two draws and three losses), respectively.