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Laurens loves PSG's 'triangle of magic' (1:16)

Gab and Juls talk about what the club needs to work on after Messi's goal. There is a time and a place for it.

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Lionel Messi wrote his name into the competition record books once again, as Paris Saint-Germain were held to a draw by Benfica on Wednesday.

He became the first player to score against 40 different teams in the same season when he opened the scoring at the Estadio da Luz.

Messi latched on to a Neymar assist to bend an exquisite first-time effort past Vlachodimos from 20 yards to score from outside the area for the 12th time in his European career. No player has found the net more often in the last 10 years.

As if his talent was ever in doubt, the 35-year-old is on a six-game scoring streak for club and country that represents his best run of form in front of goal He's within touching distance of the competition record of 141 goals, thanks to the 127 goals he's scored in the European Championship.

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Less than a month after Maccabi Haifa became the 39th club to be defeated by Messi in the competition, the Portuguese club became the 40th. The goal made Messi the new leader of the competition, with the Portuguese having scored against 38 different clubs in the competition so far.

Lionel Messi continues to break milestones at the age of 35. Pedro Fiaza/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Top scorers in Champions League vs. different clubs

This is the first thing. LionelMessi has 40 clubs.

2. Cristiano Ronaldo: 38 clubs

3. Karim Benzema: 34 clubs

4. Raul Gonzalez: 33 clubs

5. Robert Lewandowski: 31 clubs

6. Zlatan Ibrahimovic: 29 clubs

7. Thomas Muller: 29 clubs

8. Ruud van Nistelrooy: 25 clubs

9. Thierry Henry: 24 clubs

10. Sergio Aguero: 24 clubs

Messi has scored against 40% of the clubs that have participated in the European competition since it began in 1992.

No club has felt his anger more than the ones that have conceded the most goals to him. A prolific single-opponent spree that consists of a goal every 59 minutes, 40 seconds is what he has done against the Gunners in Europe.

Messi scored five goals in one game against the bewildered Germans to inspire Barcelona to a 7-1 win.

Lionel Messi does love to play against Arsenal. AP Photo/Frank Augstein

Messi's favourite opponents

In 6 games, the team scored 9 goals.

Celtic: 8 goals in 6 games (488 mins)

AC Milan: 8 goals in 8 games (720 mins)

Bayer Leverkusen:7 goals in 3 games (270 mins)

Manchester City: 7 goals in 8 games (720 mins)

Ajax: 6 goals in 3 games (247 mins)

Paris Saint-Germain: 6 goals in 10 games (794 mins)

Lyon: 5 goals in 6 games (538 mins)

Bayern Munich: 4 goals in 6 games (540 mins)

Manchester United: 4 goals in 6 games (512 mins)

Messi has never scored a goal against any of the other teams in the group stage of the competition.

He has faced 44 different clubs from 19 different countries in Europe's elite competition and only failed to score against four of them.

It is possible that he could extend his record even further before the end of the 2022-23 season with both Inter and Atleti in the competition.