Another set piece lesson from Lionel Messi
The Barcelona skipper hit a hat-trick of dead ball goals against Celta Vigo
Lionel Messi has mastered set pieces. He has 612 goals for Barcelona, in 698 games, including 46 hat-tricks, 46 free-kicks, 72 penalties - and 493 wins. Messi has eight goals in five La Liga games. And missed the first four matches of the season injured. Despite that he's one goal behind Liga top scorer Karim Benzema, on nine.
Messi scored two free-kicks in the same game for the third time in his career. The first was against Sevilla in the 2015 European Super Cup final in Tblisi, then he followed that in December 2018 against Espanyol in La Liga.
LEARNING
Messi has improved steadily at set pieces over the years. A good piece of advice came from Diego Maradona, who coached Messi with Argentina in 09-10. Fitness coach Fernando Signorini recounted it. "Put the ball here and listen to me. Don't take your foot away from the ball so fast because otherwise it won't know what you want."
Messi also learned a lot from Ronaldinho and Deco in his early days with Barcelona.
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