Barcelona: Barcelona star Lionel Messi broke the record for the most goals in a single Champions League campaign and equalled the all-time European Cup record when he netted an 11th-minute penalty against AC Milan in their quarter-final second leg on Tuesday.
Messi scored two first-half penalties to lead Barcelona to a 3-1 victory over Milan at the Camp Nou and a place in the Champions League semi-finals for the fifth straight season.
The Argentine converted from the spot just 11 minutes into the quarter-final second-leg clash in Catalunya, after he himself had been felled in the penalty area by Rossoneri defender Luca Antonini, and then struck again to take his tally for the current campaign to 14.
The three-times World Player of the Year had shared the previous record with former Manchester United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, after netting 12 times in the tournament in 2010-11 when Barca won the trophy.
His current total is the most since the tournament evolved from the European Cup in the 1992-93 campaign.
The 24-year-old is now level, though, with Brazilian-born Jose Altafini, who scored 14 times for AC Milan during the 1962-63 European Cup.
Messi's spot-kicks also took his overall Champions League tally to 51, making him the youngest player to rack up a half-century of goals in Europe's premier club cup competition.
Earlier this month, the forward became the first player to score five goals in a single match in the 7-1 thrashing of Bayer Leverkusen last month, and is also the all-time highest scorer in the competition's knock-out stages.
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