From injury to glory: Here is how Messi broke the record • 12/09/2012, 07:13 PM

It's no secret that Argentine forward Lionel Messi is a man of records. After Dec. 5 he was close to not playing again in 2012 after suffering a knee injury in his left knee. Four day later, he broke Gerd Muller's record for goals in a calendar year. Here is how Messi went from injury to history (with information from agencies).

After entering in the 58th minute against Benfica in Champions League, Messi injured his left knee in the last five minutes of the match when he collided with Benfica goalkeeper Artur.

Messi tried to be strong and actually got a shot off, but then the pain came, and he went to the ground and stayed there for several minutes. He had to be taken off the field on a stretcher, and at that point, he had scored 84 goals in 2012.

At first there was thought that the injury was serious, but Barcelona released a statement saying that after some initial tests, Messi suffered a 'bruise on the outside his left knee.'

As it wasn't a serious injury, Messi still had four matches left to surpass Muller, who scored 85 goals in a calendar year for his club and country.

It was in 1972 that the forward, who was 27 at the time, scored 72 goals with Bayern Munich and 13 with the national team in a total of 60 matches to set the record.

Messi, who is 25, scored 86 goals in 66 matches -- 74 with Barcelona and 12 for Argentina, and he still has three matches to play before the year ends.

He set the record Dec. 9 in a 2-1 win over Real Betis in La Liga.

At the 15-minute mark Messi scored his first goal, beating two men and scoring with a sharp-angled shot just inside the right post.

It didn't take long for Messi to get the second, as 10 minutes later he beat Muller's record with an almost identical shot.

And so, Messi achieved the record a mere three days after the great scare in the Benfica match, which turned out to be just a simple contusion, and he was allowed to play Sunday without issues.

'It's very beautiful to get the record, but as I always say, the most important is the win, that the team wins and can maintain its distance from the rest of the teams,' Messi said afterwards, insisting that his goal is titles, not individual records.