With his latest assist, Lionel Messi outshined Cristiano Ronaldo and turned into the first soccer player to ever reach 1,350 career goal contributions. Lionel Messi may have stepped away from international duty with Argentina, but that reality hardly excuses him from continuing to write soccer history with Inter Miami. With his latest assist, the forward outpaced long-time rival Cristiano Ronaldo to become the first player in modern professional soccer history to reach 1,350 career goal contributions. Inter Miami traveled to Soldier Field to face the Chicago Fire in MLS action, seeking to close the gap on Nashville SC in the race for the 2026 Supporters’ Shield. However, Robert Lewandowski opened the scoring for the home side with an acrobatic finish in the 10th minute. Despite testing the defense on multiple long-range efforts, Messi was repeatedly denied by Chicago goalkeeper Chris Brady, who turned aside four shots from the Argentine playmaker throughout the night. However, in the 48th minute, Messi whipped in a corner kick from the left flank, connecting with Casemiro, who rose above his marker to head home the equalizer. Despite the 1-1 draw, Messi’s latest setup officially pushed his career total to 1,350 combined goals and assists. The delivery to Casemiro represented his 423rd career assist, extending his record as the game’s all-time setup leader, alongside 927 official goals across 1,173 appearances for an average of 1.15 goal contributions per match. Casemiro heads it home for the equalizer. 🇧🇷 pic.twitter.com/7O2wr2cAyz— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 10, 2026 Lionel Messi’s breakdown of goal contributions TeamGamesGoalsAssistsTotal Goal ContributionsBarcelona778672269941Argentina20712565190PSG75323466Inter Miami1139855153TOTAL11739274231,350 How far is Cristiano Ronaldo? Cristiano Ronaldo made headlines earlier in the week after scoring his 979th career goal in Al Nassr’s 2-1 victory over Abha. While the Portuguese star remains closer to reaching the 1,000-goal mark, Messi maintains a clear edge in overall goal contributions. Across stints with Sporting CP, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, Al Nassr, and the Portugal national team, Ronaldo has accumulated 979 goals and 261 assists in 1,335 career appearances. That brings his career tally to 1,240 goal contributions at a rate of 0.93 per match, leaving him 110 behind Messi. During the 2025-26 campaign, Ronaldo captured the Saudi Pro League title with Al Nassr while producing 30 goals and four assists, adding three World Cup goals for Portugal to reach 37 goal contributions. At age 41, and having indicated that the 2026-27 season could mark his final professional campaign, the Portuguese legend faces an insurmountable gap to catch Messi’s total.
Mikel Arteta during Arsenal’s win over Napoli (Picture: Getty) Mikel Arteta was seen ‘raging’ at three of his players during Arsenal’s Champions League win over Napoli. The Gunners won all eight of their European league phase games last season and made an impressive start to this season’s campaign, beating Napoli 1-0 in Italy. Arsenal were the better side throughout but it looked as though their wastefulness in front of goal would cost them the three points until in-form Martin Odegaard popped up with a 75th-minute winner. Arteta was impressed with his team’s performance out in Naples and said his only disappointment was their inability to kill the game off sooner. Sign up for In The Mixer, Metro's football newsletter Get exclusive analysis and previews of the biggest games every Friday. Sign up now for free. ‘We fully deserved the three points,’ Arteta told TNT Sports after the game. ‘The performance probably doesn’t reflect the result, the team was superb. ‘We showed quality in a lot of moments to break them down and it was a shame because we missed so many great chances. ‘On any other day the result would be different. We should have done it in a different way because of the amount of chances we created but we got the win in the end.’ Martin Odegaard fired Arsenal past Napoli (Picture: Getty) On Odegaard’s latest influential performance, Arteta added: ‘Martin is contributing with goals that are impacting results which is what we want from our attacking players. ‘We want them to be decisive and certainly he was again today.’ While Arteta returned to north London a happy man, he was left ‘absolutely raging’ at three of his players as they looked to kill the game off. Odegaard celebrates Arsenal’s European win (Picture: Getty) Arsenal wasted a glorious chance to score a second late on and TNT Sports co-commentator Lucy Ward noticed Arteta screaming at Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke and Christos Tzolis to track back as Napoli attempted to counter. ‘Mikel Arteta was absolutely raging on the sidelines that Havertz, Madueke and Tzolis weren’t recovering after that attack,’ she said. ‘It was so interesting. As the Arsenal attack finished, those three all sort of ambled back, and Mikel Arteta ran down the sidelines and shouted at them to recover.’ “We missed so many big chances”Mikel Arteta shares his thoughts after Arsenal’s victory over Napoli 💭🎙️ @DannyJamieson | 📺 Watch live on TNT Sports & HBO Max pic.twitter.com/v559rbRAj0— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) September 9, 2026 Arsenal, who reached the Champions League final last season while lifting the Premier League trophy, have now won all five of their first games of the 2026-27 campaign. Assessing Arsenal’s performance against Italian giants Napoli, Arteta added: ‘I’m very, very happy. ‘A really tough place to come and a really different environment to play football – a beautiful one, by the way – against a really good team. ‘I love the way we attacked the game, the way we competed, the hunger that we showed, the desire to dominate, to come here, to own the pitch, and the quality that we showed against a team that it’s so difficult to create chances against. ‘We created a huge amount of them and the result doesn’t reflect what we saw on the pitch. ‘The players were immense, and to play with that personality, with that conviction and with that quality in the Champions League away from home, it’s something that I’m extremely pleased about.’ Arsenal’s next Champions League fixture is against Ligue 1 side Lille after the upcoming international break. For more stories like this, check our sport page. Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Comment now Comments Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google Add as preferred source
Playing away in the Champions League, it is always going to be tough, but I think with Gyokeres, you can feel the difference when he is playing compared to when Kai Havertz is. "Arsenal created chances before that and Gyokeres created a chance or two himself, but Arsenal just felt like a different team when Havertz was in there, maybe because there were some more familiar faces coming on to the pitch as well, the likes of Christos Tzolis and so on, but they looked different and it felt different, it felt more familiar."
Cristiano Ronaldo and Al Nassr responded to their first defeat of the season in style, beating Abha 2-1 at Al Awwal Park to move level with Al Hilal and Al Qadsiah at the top of the Saudi Pro League standings after six rounds. Ronaldo broke the deadlock in the 22nd minute, rising above his marker […] Cristiano Ronaldo and Al Nassr responded to their first defeat of the season in style, beating Abha 2-1 at Al Awwal Park to move level with Al Hilal and Al Qadsiah at the top of the Saudi Pro League standings after six rounds. Ronaldo broke the deadlock in the 22nd minute, rising above his marker to meet an Angelo corner and powering a header that struck the post before crossing the line, a goal that took his career tally to 979 and kept alive his pursuit of the 1,000-goal milestone. Abdullah Al-Hamdan doubled Al Nassr’s lead in the 58th minute with a right-footed finish into the top corner, capping a dominant display from a home side missing Joao Felix through suspension and Kingsley Coman through injury. Abha refused to fold, and Nabil Fekir gave the visitors hope in the 75th minute, stepping up to a free kick from the left flank and catching goalkeeper Bento off guard by shooting directly on target rather than delivering a cross. Ver esta publicación en Instagram Una publicación compartida por Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) The result lifted Ange Postecoglou’s side level on 15 points with Al Hilal and Al Qadsiah heading into the next round, keeping Al Nassr firmly in the title conversation despite the earlier stumble. Ronaldo climbs into the Saudi Pro League’s scoring picture Ronaldo’s header moved him further up a crowded Golden Boot chase, though Ivan Toney remains well clear at the top. Despite Al Ahli’s 3-2 defeat to Al Qadsiah on Tuesday, Toney scored a brace in the loss, stretching his tally to eight goals and keeping him as the outright leader of the scoring charts. Behind him, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, George Ilenikhena and Iker Kortajarena are tied for second with 4 goals apiece, while Ronaldo’s strike against Abha lifted him into a much larger group tied on 3, that includes Ruben Neves, Tijjani Reijnders, Alexandre Lacazette, Angelo, Darwin Nunez, and Moussa Dembele, among others.
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