Argentina legend Gabriel Batistuta has said that it will hurt when he is replaced as his nation’s all-time top scorer by Lionel Messi.
Batistuta currently sits on 56 goals with Messi six behind on 50, and at just 28 years of age there is still plenty of time for the Barcelona forward to break Batigol’s record. A record which has stood since the ex-Fiorentina forward scored against Nigeria at the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
“It is going to hurt when Messi breaks my record, but we are not talking about being beaten by any terrestrial being,” Batistuta said to FoxSports.
“I came to be the highest goalscorer of all time without even realising. One day I woke up and I heard I had scored more than Maradona.”
“How could it not hurt me to see that record be broken?
“Messi will beat me, that’s a fact, and I’m surprised that it’s not been done already.
“It will bother me to tell the truth, because being [Argentina’s] top goalscorer filled me with pride and I’ve enjoyed that for a long time.
“The consolation is that I’m losing this record to a player from another level, and I’ve already beaten one player, Diego Maradona, who was from another planet.
“I hope Messi’s goals serve as a platform for Argentina to win something.”
Batistuta however, doesn’t agree with the criticism levelled at the Barcelona forward when he plays for his country.
“Messi plays around 70 games a year, makes good money, and has no need to come [to Argentina] and be part of this ‘bitching.’
“Criticism comes if you play badly of course, but we can’t say that he doesn’t feel hungry, Messi wants to win.”
Talking about the comparisons between Messi and Maradona, Batistuta spoke about the generation of Argentine players who he competed with and how they match up to the two icons of Argentine football.
“I played with monsters like Claudio Caniggia, Oscar Ruggeri, Sergio Goycochea, ‘El Burrirto’ [Ariel Ortega], ‘El Cholo’ [Diego Simeone].
“But Messi and Maradona come from another planet.
“With Maradona I played a little, but I didn’t even get the chance to train with ‘La Pulga’ [Messi]. I wonder what I could’ve achieved playing with him.”
While his final goal was in 2002, Batistuta actually broke the record 16 years previous to that in 1996. Just five years after his first goal against Venezuela in the 1991 Copa América (where he drove Argentina to victory with a tournament high 6 goals), Batistuta scored his 35th strike against Paraguay in a qualifier for the 1998 FIFA World Cup to move past Diego Maradona in the standings.
The striker known as Batigol has an exceptional record of 56 goals in just 78 games. By contrast Lionel Messi’s half century of goals for Argentina has come in 107 appearances, although the man from Rosario has to play a more creative role for his national team which often stops him from being at his extra-terrestrial best.
Argentina are currently third in the CONMEBOL World Cup qualification table, two points behind joint leaders Ecuador and Uruguay. This summer they will compete in the Copa América Centenario, hoping to make up for their narrow defeats in the finals of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2015 Copa América.
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