Comparing Raphinha’s 2024-25 Champions League record with Lionel Messi’s best-ever season
Raphinha has been the standout player in the Champions League this season, but how does his record compare to Lionel Messi‘s peak season in Europe? We’ve crunched the numbers.
From an individual perspective, Messi enjoyed his most productive UCL campaign in 2011-12, a season where Barcelona made it to the semi-finals.
For the purposes of this article, we’ve put Raphinha’s numbers from this season up against Messi’s from his dazzling 2011-12 campaign.
During 2024-25, Barcelona have been one of the most enjoyable sides to watch and that’s largely thanks to the brilliance of Raphinha.
The Brazilian winger was fairly productive during his first two years with the Spanish giants, but he’s reached a completely new level recently.
Across all competitions, the 28-year-old has produced 50 goal contributions with 28 goals and 22 assists in 45 appearances.
Only taking his numbers from the Champions League into account and he’s already managed to conjure 12 goals and seven assists.
Of his 11 appearances in Europe, Raphinha has only failed to produce a goal contribution in just two of those matches.
His latest performance against Borussia Dortmund was further proof of why he’s currently one of the favourites to win the Ballon d’Or later this year.
With one goal and two assists, Raphinha tied level on goal contributions with Messi’s record from the 2011-12 season.
Given that Barcelona stand a good chance of going all the way in Europe this season, the 28-year-old should have plenty of opportunities to add more goals and assists to his tally yet.
“I was worried about the first goal being offside,” Raphinha told reporters following Barcelona’s 4-0 thumping of Dortmund.
“The good thing is that it was valid. I touched the ball before the line and apologised to (Pau) Cubarsi, and he told me it was fine, that it counted as an assist.
“I love playing with high-level players. We know each other well, and it’s important because we’re achieving spectacular numbers and we want to continue like this.
“But I’m not going to admit that we’re in the semi-finals and it’s difficult in front of their fans there. We achieved a good result.”
Considering he’s now drawing comparisons to Messi, it emphasises just how good the Brazilian has been this season.
Messi’s 2011-12 UCL campaign was a sight to behold, with his peak performance of the tournament coming against Bayer Leverkusen when he scored five goals in one game.
To this day, Messi is still just one of three players who scored five goals in a Champions League game.
We’ve taken a closer look at his stats and have compared them with Raphinha’s from this season.
Raphinha 2024-25 Champions League stats
Games: 11
Goals: 12
Assists: 7 ⭐
Goal contributions: 19
Penalties: 0
Minutes per goal: 77
Minutes per non-penalty goal: 77 ⭐
Minutes per goal or assist: 48.6 ⭐
Messi 2011-12 Champions League stats
Games: 11
Goals: 14 ⭐
Assists: 5
Goal contributions: 19
Penalties: 4 ⭐
Minutes per goal: 70.7 ⭐
Minutes per non-penalty goal: 99
Minutes per goal or assist: 52.1
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