LIONEL MESSI EQUALED OLD RECORD OF LEONIDAS

• Dec 7, 2023
• History Statistics

Messi equaled old record of Leônidas

The legendary Brazilian forward Leônidas da Silva once set an interesting record, which, it seems, hasn’t received any attention. 
Of his first 15 matches for the national team, he failed to score in only one, namely in the Copa Roca match against Argentina (0-3) on 25 February 1940.
Throughout many decades, before and after, no one repeated such a long streak - scoring in 14 out of 15 successive matches. Although two came very close. Steve Bloomer in 1895-1901 and Ole Madsen in 1961-1962 scored in 13 out of 14 consecutive national team matches with their participation.
And only Lionel Messi became the man who managed to equal Leonidas’ achievement. Between 5 June 2022 and 8 September 2023, he has played 15 games for Argentina, of which did not score in only one, on 30 November 2022, in the last round of the World cup group stage against Poland (2-0).
Messi's streak would possibly have continued further if he had played full time in his next match, a 1-0 win against Paraguay on 13 October. But due to injury, his participation was limited to only a segment of the second half. What was enough for two hits on the post, but not for a goal.
So Leônidas’ old record stood. But at least it was finally repeated.
This ranking summarizes the longest streaks in the history of national teams, with condition of scoring in all games except one.

	LONGEST STREAKS	OF     SCORING	IN   ALL	GAMES
	BUT     ONE    IN	NATIONAL	TEAM
	Player	National team	Games	From	To
1	Leônidas	Brazil	15	04/12/1932	31/03/1940
	Lionel Messi	Argentina	15	05/06/2022	08/09/2023
3	Steve Bloomer	England	14	09.03.1895	30/03/1901
	Ole Madsen	Denmark	14	28/05/1961	12/12/1962
5	Klaus Fischer	Germany	13	17/10/1979	17/02/1982
	Stern John	Trinidad and Tobago	13	22/07/1998	17/11/1999
7	Abdul Ghani Minhat	Malaysia	12	28/05/1961	29/08/1962
	Poul "Tist" Nielsen	Denmark	12	02/07/1912	15/10/2016
	Milan Galić	Yugoslavia	12	24/04/1960	10/09/1960
	Sándor Kocsis	Hungary	12	23/05/1954	08/12/1954
	Hristo Stoichkov	Bulgaria	12	26/04/1995	08/06/1997