Lionel Messi: Barcelona forward breaks Pelé’s goal record in victory over Real Valladolid

Lionel Messi scored his 644 goal for Barcelona during his team’s victory over Real Valladolid to break Pelé’s record for most goals for a club.

Messi created the first goal when his cross was headed by Clement Lenglet and the play began for the second, finished off by Martin Braithwaite.

Messi also hit the post in injury time.

The great Brazilian Pelé scored 643 goals in 19 seasons with Santos in his homeland between 1956 and 1974.

Messi, who scored his first goal for Barça in 2005 and has won 10 La Liga titles and four Champions League titles, is out of contract at the end of the season and can speak to other clubs from January.

In August, he said he wanted to exercise a clause in his deal that he said allowed him to walk away with a free transfer, but Barcelona refused, saying it had to comply with his 700 million euro (£ 624 million) release clause. .

Earlier this week, Messi said the incident led to have a “very bad time in the summer”, although he was in excellent shape against Valladolid on Tuesday, inspiring a victory that took Barcelona to fifth place, eight points behind leaders Atlético de Madrid.

Barça could have scored more goals, but Masip made a series of good saves and substitute Philippe Coutinho also hit the wood at the end.

Marc-Andre Ter Stegen made two one-handed saves to deny Fabián Orellana and Kike Pérez, preserving Barcelona’s clean sheet.

Earlier on Tuesday Atlético beat Real Sociedad 2-0, third thanks to goals from Mario Hermoso and Marcos Llorente to go three points ahead of Real Madrid, who play Granada at home on Wednesday (18:45 GMT).