How a curling strike from a near impossible angle moved the Inter Miami captain within touching
distance of football’s most stubborn record

Inter Miami versus Columbus Crew | Major League Soccer | Sunday 27 September 2026

By The Matchday Pundit

A Masterpiece in a Losing Cause
Lionel Messi has scored the seventy sixth direct free kick goal of his career, leaving him just two
strikes short of the all time record. The moment arrived on Sunday evening at Hard Rock Stadium,
where Messi curled a left footed effort from a wide position on the right into the far top corner to level
the scores against Columbus Crew. It was the kind of goal that draws a collective gasp before the ball
even settles in the net, and it lifted him into second place on the list of the greatest free kick scorers
the sport has ever seen. Yet the night itself ended in disappointment for Inter Miami, who were beaten
2:1 after Columbus found a late winner deep into stoppage time, a reminder that even the most
spectacular individual moments do not always translate into points.

The milestone carries extra weight because of how quickly it has arrived. Messi turned thirty nine
earlier this year, an age at which most players have long since stopped being their team’s primary
source of set piece danger, and yet he is producing free kick goals at a rate that would look
impressive for someone half his age. Football writers and supporters have spent the last day debating
whether this particular strike belongs among the finest of his career, and the sheer number of people
describing the trajectory of the ball as almost impossible tells its own story about the technical quality
involved.

How the Goal Unfolded at Hard Rock Stadium
The context of the strike made it all the more valuable. Columbus took an early lead through a penalty
converted by Josef Martinez, a former teammate of Messi from his first months in Miami back in 2023,
and Inter Miami spent the opening stretch of the match searching for a way back into the contest.
That response came in the thirty third minute, only six minutes after the Crew had gone in front. A free
kick was awarded close to the right touchline, a position from which most players would simply deliver
a cross into the penalty area. Messi had other ideas. He stood over the ball, took his familiar short run
up, and whipped a left footed strike over the wall and towards the far corner, with enough bend to
leave Columbus goalkeeper Patrick Schulte with no realistic chance of reaching it.

Messi came close to giving Inter Miami the lead on the hour mark, but this time Schulte was equal to
the effort and tipped the shot over the crossbar. That save proved to be pivotal. Columbus scored an
unexpected winner in the ninety ninth minute, sending the visitors home with all three points and
leaving Messi to reflect on a night in which he produced a moment of genuine brilliance without being
rewarded by the result. The goal also extended his lead at the top of the Major League Soccer
Golden Boot race to three goals, as it was his twenty first league goal of the season, another sign that
the Argentine shows little sign of slowing down even as the campaign moves into its final stretch.

What the Number Seventy Six Really Means
Behind the headline figure sits an extraordinary body of work spread across four different teams and
more than two decades of professional football. Messi’s seventy six direct free kick goals in official
matches have come for Barcelona, Paris Saint Germain, Inter Miami and Argentina. The
overwhelming majority of them arrived during his years in Catalonia, where he scored fifty direct free
kicks, a tally that Barcelona themselves celebrated as a landmark when he reached it in 2021. At the
time, the club pointed out that the figure was not only a record in La Liga but was also more than any
single player had managed in the Premier League, the Bundesliga, Serie A or Ligue 1.

The remaining twenty six or so strikes have been added in Paris, in Argentina colours and, most
recently, in South Florida since he joined Inter Miami in 2023. That distribution is significant, because
it shows that Messi has not merely coasted on the reputation he built early in his career. He has
continued to add to the total steadily through his thirties, and the current burst of form is arguably the
most productive stretch he has had from dead ball situations in years. Alongside the free kick
milestone, his overall career goal tally has now moved beyond nine hundred and thirty one, figures
that few players in the history of the sport have ever approached.

A Remarkable Run of Free Kicks in 2026
What makes the current moment so fascinating is the recent frequency of the goals. The strike
against Columbus was the seventh free kick Messi has scored in 2026, and the sequence leading up
to it reads like a highlight reel. He reached seventy five with a free kick against San Diego FC, then
followed it with further set piece goals against Orlando City and New York City FC. He also scored
twice from free kicks in Inter Miami’s emphatic 7:1 win over CF Montreal, and earlier in the year he
converted another for Argentina against Jordan at the World Cup. Several observers on social media
have joked that his last four goals all seem to have been free kicks, and while that may be an
exaggeration, it captures the sense that the technique has become a defining feature of his late
career output.

There is also a tactical logic behind the trend. As Messi has aged, his role has naturally evolved. He
no longer needs to dribble past multiple defenders every match to influence the game, and Inter
Miami’s system allows him to conserve energy in open play while remaining a constant threat
whenever the team wins a set piece in a promising area. Free kicks offer a way to decide a match
with a single moment of quality, and opposing goalkeepers and defensive walls know that any foul
inside forty yards of goal carries the risk of a spectacular consequence. That psychological pressure
is impossible to measure directly, but it almost certainly plays a role in how often Miami win these
situations.

The Man Who Holds the Record: Marcelinho Carioca
The record that Messi is chasing belongs to former Brazil international Marcelinho Carioca, who is
widely credited with seventy eight direct free kick goals. Carioca, who spent most of his career with
Flamengo and Corinthians, earned the nickname Angel’s Foot because of his extraordinary ability
from set pieces. His final free kick goal is credited to a spell with Brazilian side Santo Andre in 2009,
which means the record has stood untouched for well over a decade and a half. For Brazilian football
supporters, Carioca remains a cult hero, a player whose reputation rests almost entirely on the
artistry of his dead ball technique.

It is worth adding a note of caution about the record itself. Free kick statistics have never been
recorded as consistently as goals or assists, and different compilers use different criteria when
deciding which strikes count. Some lists include only official matches, while others include friendlies
or lower level competitions. Reports around this latest goal have pointed out that Brazilian Juninho
Pernambucano is placed near the top of some tallies with seventy seven, though the most recent
widely circulated lists put Carioca first on seventy eight and Messi second. That means the exact
moment at which Messi becomes the outright record holder may be debated depending on which
source is treated as authoritative, but the broader point stands: he is now within touching distance of
a mark that seemed almost unreachable.

The All Time Leaderboard
The current list of the greatest free kick scorers in football history reads like a roll call of specialists.
Marcelinho Carioca sits at the top with seventy eight, followed by Messi on seventy six. Jair Rosa
Pinto, the celebrated Brazilian of the mid twentieth century, is credited with seventy four, while
Roberto Dinamite has seventy three and Juninho Pernambucano has seventy two on the most
commonly cited list. What stands out about that group is how many of them are Brazilian, a reflection
of the country’s long tradition of producing free kick artists. Messi is the only player in the top five who
built his reputation primarily through open play and only later added the dead ball record on top of it.

Reports have also noted that Messi recently moved past the free kick mark associated with Pele, a
symbolic passing of the torch that adds another layer to the story. Whenever Messi reaches a
milestone that puts him ahead of a legend from a previous generation, the conversation inevitably
turns to how his career compares to those of the sport’s greatest names. In this case, the comparison
has less to do with trophies and more to do with sheer technical repetition, the ability to produce the
same difficult skill over and over again across two decades.

The Technique Behind the Strikes
Anyone who has watched Messi over the years will recognise the mechanics of his free kicks. He
tends to take a short, controlled approach rather than a long run up, and his left foot makes contact
with the ball in a way that generates exceptional bend without sacrificing power. Against Columbus,
the difficulty came from the angle. Standing wide on the right, he had very little of the goal to aim at,
and the natural instinct for most players in that position would be to look for a teammate. Instead,
Messi bent the ball around the wall and onto a trajectory that dipped just under the crossbar in the far
corner. Watching the replays, it is easy to see why so many supporters described it as one of his
finest.

It also helps that Messi has always been unusually intelligent about goalkeepers. Throughout his
career he has shown a knack for spotting which side a keeper is favouring, or how much space has
been left between the wall and the post, and adjusting the details of his strike accordingly. That
awareness cannot be taught easily, and it helps explain why his conversion rate from set pieces has
remained strong even as his physical attributes have naturally changed over the years.

A Personal Milestone Against a Competitive Backdrop
The free kick record is only one of several storylines swirling around Messi at the moment. He leads
the MLS Golden Boot race, he has already helped Inter Miami win the Campeones Cup this month,
and he remains one of the leading names in conversations around this year’s Ballon d’Or. Very few
players in the history of the sport have had a single season in which so many different records and
honours are in play at once, and the free kick milestone adds another chapter to what is already an
extraordinary campaign.

It is worth remembering, too, that Messi is doing all of this in a league that many people once
assumed would offer a gentle retirement. Instead, he has used his time in Major League Soccer to
keep producing moments that are shared across the world within minutes, and the free kick against
Columbus was another clear example. Fabrizio Romano’s post announcing the milestone attracted
hundreds of thousands of views within hours, and supporters from rival fan bases were among those
praising the quality of the strike.

Five Talking Points From a Historic Week
The first talking point is simply how realistic the record now looks. Two goals is a small gap for a
player who has already scored seven free kicks this year, and if he maintains anything close to his
current rate, the record could fall well within the next few months.
Second, the age factor deserves attention. Most elite players see their set piece output decline as
they get older, because the sharpness of their technique fades alongside their physical attributes.
Messi is doing the opposite, and that is a remarkable testament to both his talent and his
professionalism.

Third, the debate over how free kick records are counted will continue to run in parallel with the
celebration. Whichever list ends up being treated as definitive, the more important reality is that Messi
has become part of the very small group of players whose names are permanently tied to the art of
the dead ball.

Fourth, the loss to Columbus is a useful reminder that Inter Miami still have work to do as a team. A
late concession in the ninety ninth minute cost them points that could matter in the standings, and the
club will want to make sure that Messi’s individual brilliance is supported by a more secure collective
performance in the weeks ahead.

Fifth, and perhaps most importantly for neutral supporters, is the simple pleasure of watching a player
in his late thirties still producing moments that people around the world stop to watch. Those
moments are rare, and they will not last forever, which is precisely why each new goal feels like
something to be appreciated rather than taken for granted.

What Comes Next for Messi and the Record
Messi has now left to join up with Argentina for international duty, which means his next opportunity to
add to the total could come in national team colours rather than at Inter Miami. Either way, the
opportunities will keep coming. Every foul within range of goal, every set piece in the final third, now
carries an added sense of occasion, and opposing defenders will be acutely aware that they could be
responsible for giving him the chance to level or break one of the game’s most enduring records.

Whether the record falls in a matter of weeks or takes a little longer, Sunday’s strike against
Columbus has already secured its place in the story. It was a goal that combined technical brilliance,
dramatic context and historical significance, and it brought one of the most remarkable careers in the
history of the sport a step closer to yet another milestone. For supporters of Inter Miami, of Argentina
and of football in general, the countdown is now on, and the wait to see whether Messi can reach
seventy eight and beyond promises to be one of the great slow burn stories of the season.

Matchday Pundit