Lionel Messi breaks Pele's goal record

Lionel Messi has passed Pele’s milestone of goals in a calendar year by scoring for the 75th and 76th time in 2012.

The Argentine moved within nine of Gerd Muller’s all-time record and helped Barcelona win 4-2 at Mallorca in La Liga.

Pele scored 75 goals in 1958. Muller netted 85 in 1972.

Muller will perhaps be discouraged to hear that Messi is chasing another of his records having already surpassed one last season.

The prolific German hitman scored 67 goals for Bayern Munich in the 1972-73 season. This remained the highest tally in a European club season until the diminutive Messi scored 73 for Barcelona in the 2011-12 campaign.

Messi has nine games left to score the ten goals to surpass Muller's 85 goals, and given his current run of form - 15 goals in 11 La Liga games - the 25-year-old is on course to usurp the German once more.

The striker set another record last season when he scored 50 goals in a La Liga season, moving to the top of Barcelona's all-time top goalscorer list in the process after surpassing Cesar Rodriguez’s 57-year milestone of 232 goals in March.

Barcelona manager Tito Vilanova expressed his delight at Messi's strike rate. He said: 'Leo’s records are spectacular. It’s spectacular when you think that he scores so many goals.

'Some few players reach these numbers in seven or eight seasons, he does it in one. And most of his goals are great goals.'