48 countries and 179 cities: Exploring the geography of Lionel Messi's career

New York Times

13-03-2025

Inter Miami's second-leg trip to face Kingston-based Cavalier FC in the CONCACAF Champions Cup takes Lionel Messi into uncharted territory (literally) — he's never played in Jamaica before.
Across 1,086 club and international matches in 48 countries and 179 cities, Messi has scored 852 goals. Yet this will be the first Caribbean stamp on his footballing passport.
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For a player who struggled with intense homesickness after leaving Rosario for Barcelona at 13, the Argentinian has since enjoyed a stellar career that's taken him across six continents. Completing the continental set with a match in Antarctica is logistically challenging, though last month's trip to Kansas City, played in -9°C (16°F), was a suitable proxy for the ice-capped, largely uninhabited landmass.
From Melbourne to Montreal, Messi has dazzled crowds across the globe, but his international travels got off to a shaky start. His first senior match outside Spain ended in a 2-0 loss to Shakhtar Donetsk in December 2004. Eight months later, he ventured beyond Barcelona again for his Argentina debut — an international friendly against Hungary in Budapest — only to be sent off just two minutes after coming on for an apparent elbow, a decision that left the distraught 18-year-old in tears.
Inevitably, things picked up. Messi's globe-trotting career truly took off in 2006. He scored his first goal outside Spain in an international friendly against Croatia in Basel, Switzerland. That summer, he opened his World Cup account in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, and just a few months later, netted his first away European club goal in a Champions League clash against Werder Bremen, a 1-1 draw that was just the beginning of his dominance on the continent's biggest stage.
Unsurprisingly, Europe has been the playground for much of Messi's success, with 778 appearances for Barcelona — and, to a lesser extent, 75 for Paris Saint-Germain. Over that span, he scored 704 club goals and amassed 591 club wins, a dominance that delivered 12 domestic league titles.
Yet the crowning glory of Messi's European club career lies in his four Champions League titles. These triumphs have come in countries where his win rate — by his own lofty standards — is relatively modest.
Aside from his first title, secured in his absence through injury in Paris against Arsenal in 2006, each of his other Champions League victories was won in a country where he has prevailed in fewer than half his matches.
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Take Italy for example, where he has won just five of 15 matches — only three against Italian club sides. The other two victories sit at opposite ends of the significance scale: one, a Champions League final masterclass, where his header sealed Barcelona's 2-0 win over Manchester United in Rome; the other, a far more forgettable 2-0 international friendly win over Angola in Salerno.
England, too, holds mixed memories for Messi. He lifted another Champions League title there in 2011, scoring in Barcelona's 3-1 victory over Manchester United at Wembley — one of nine goals he has netted on English soil. Yet, for all his successes, a night in Liverpool in 2019 arguably marked the nadir of his club career. After winning the first leg 3-0, Barcelona famously collapsed in the return fixture, suffering a 4-0 defeat at Anfield that remains one of the most stunning turnarounds in Champions League history.
Messi's final Champions League triumph came in Berlin, where Barcelona defeated Juventus 3-1 in the 2015 final. Over his career, he has played in nine German cities — Gelsenkirchen, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Munich, Bremen, Stuttgart, Leverkusen, Berlin and Dortmund. Despite his extensive travels in Germany, he has never won an away match against Bayern Munich. Bayern also handed him the heaviest defeat of his career — a humiliating 8-2 loss in Lisbon, as the 2019-20 Champions League was relocated due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite his storied and dizzyingly successful European club career, Messi's greatest hour came in the blue and white of Argentina. In December 2022, he finally lifted the World Cup, triumphing over France in a dramatic penalty shootout in Lusail, Qatar.
Argentina have long recognised Messi's value — and they charge accordingly. The going rate for a friendly featuring their captain is believed to be $5 million, a price that has taken him to myriad spots. Over the years, Messi has played international friendlies in Australia, Bangladesh, China, England, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Musical acts have long struggled to replicate their European success in America — just ask the film studio that spent over $100 million rendering Robbie Williams as a CGI monkey. Yet Messi has had no such trouble adapting to US shores — his MLS career has been a roaring success so far. He's back to scoring almost a goal a game again, and his Inter Miami career has included games in seventeen cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
And, if he stays fit, he'll add Kingston, Jamaica, to that list tonight.
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