Messi, goal king in La Liga on the pitch... and on the bench

Leo Messi has been the top scorer in La Liga for a while. And he will be so for many more years, as the only active player that is close is Benzema, with 179, when the Argentine has 457. Not even a hypothetical return of Cristiano Ronaldo would overshadow him, as the Portuguese has 311. But the merit of the Barca captain goes beyond: he is the goal king on the pitch and the bench.

Koeman went easy on his star player against Betis because of the upcoming schedule. But with Betis up 1-0 at half-time, it forced him to bring him on. Messi, who took just two minutes to score, got another goal off the bench since making his debut as a Barca player, and that makes 27.

In this way, he equalled Óscar De Paula, another super-sub in the history of the tournament. And he is only one goal away from the current leader Julio Salinas. The ex-Basque striker retired with 28 goals coming off the bench.

The top 5 is completed by Walter Pandiani, who has 24 in 125 games, and Manolo Sarabia, who got 22 in 144 matches starting on the bench.

In absolute terms, he is one short of being at the top. However, Salinas achieved them in 112 matches, when Messi has only needed 56 for his stat. An average of 0.25 and 0.48, respectively.

Therefore Messi, who is in a very sweet moment, is not only fighting to be the top scorer in the league, but has a shot at rounding off his tyrannical goal-scoring dominance in Spain.