As Lionel Messi is all set to face Newell’s Old Boys next, check out his stats with his childhood club along with the total goals scored and his jersey at the club
Inter Miami will be facing Newell’s Old Boys as their last friendly match ahead of the 2024 MLS season’s beginnings.
Lionel Messi Newell’s Old Boys total goals scored, games, stats, jersey number and where to buy
The fixture for Lionel Messi and the Inter-Miami manager won’t be just a fixture for them. It will be emotional and full of nostalgic memories as both of them have played for the club in their early days.
The city of Rosario welcomed a boy on June 24, 1987, who would go on to become a football hero years later, but who was never able to play professionally in the city where he was raised. Messi had a successful youth career with Newell’s, scoring 234 goals in six years, before leaving to join Barcelona.
DRV PNK Stadium in Miami will host the encounter on Thursday, February 15 between the MLS squad and the team from Rosario, the hometown of both Messi and manager Gerardo Martino. Throughout his playing career, Martino made three separate stints with the team, accumulating the most impressions of any player in the club’s history. He bagged four trophies as a player and one as manager in 2013.
Messi was born in Rosario, Santa Fe and joined the Rosario club at the age of six and has been a longtime fan of Newell’s Old Boys. In his six years at Newell’s, he nearly scored five hundred goals as a member of “The Machine of ’87,” the invincible youth squad named after the year of their birth, and frequently delighted spectators with ball tricks at halftime of the first team’s home games.
Messi paid tribute to Diego Maradona by revealing a Newell’s Old Boys jersey donning the number 10, following the death of the great Argentinian footballer which can be bought here.
Lionel Messi is really fond of Newell’s Old Boys. For the magician, this was the starting point of everything. Let us have a look at his stats with the club ahead of the encounter.
1999 🔙
La ⚽️ siempre al 🔟#Messi 🐐 pic.twitter.com/nLwdDlD6KR
— Newell’s Old Boys (@Newells) May 16, 2020
In just 176 games, Lionel Messi found the back of the goal an incredible 234 times, according to a report from a former Newell’s Old Boys staffer.
- In 1994, he netted 40 goals in 29 matches.
- In 1995, he netted 35 goals in 30 matches.
- In 1996, he netted 36 goals in 27 matches.
- In 1997, he netted 40 goals in 36 matches.
- In 1998, he netted 27 goals in 25 matches.
- In 1999, he netted 55 goals in 29 matches.
| Year | Games | Goals | Goals per game |
| 1994 | 29 | 40 | 1.38 |
| 1995 | 30 | 35 | 1.17 |
| 1996 | 27 | 36 | 1.33 |
| 1997 | 36 | 40 | 1.11 |
| 1998 | 25 | 27 | 1.08 |
| 1999 | 29 | 55 | 1.90 |