Lionel Messi by numbers: statistics that show the Barcelona forward is on a different level to any of his peers His 12 goals already this season - which equals the best total in a Champions League campaign of Van Nistelrooy for Manchester United in 2002/03 and Messi himself last season. This season, Messi has scored twice as many goals as any other player in the Champions league, with Bayern Munich's Mario Gomez currently on six. Since his goal in the 2009 final, Messi has scored 33 goals in 30 Champions League starts. It had been a year since he last scored at Camp Nou in the competition (3-1 v Arsenal, 8 March 2011). The Argentine had seven shots against Leverkusen, six of them on target. Perhaps even more impressively Messi has managed to find the net 49 times in just 53 games for Barca this season to take him within seven goals of becoming the club's all-time leading scorer, the 235 recorded by César Rodríguez between 1942 and 1955 Lionel Messi is 24-years-old.