Lionel Messi once again stole the headlines on Tuesday night with a brilliant free kick, his sixth of the season, and a compilation of his goals from a dead ball this season prove how versatile he is with them.

The whole of the football world has been falling over itself in praise for Lionel Messi in the last few days, not that anything is new there, with the Barcelona forward twice scoring brilliant free kicks.

On Saturday the five time Ballon d’Or winner helped Barcelona win the derby against Espanyol by chipping in a free kick, helped in part by the defender on the line.

A couple of days later and Barca faced Villarreal in La Liga and Ernesto Valverde decided to give the five time Ballon d’Or winner a bit of a rest.

It looked like things would be fine as Malcom setup Philippe Coutinho and then scored himself to give the away side a 2-0 lead at half time. However in the end Messi needed to help save the team as they collapsed in the second half to trail 4-2.

Messi’s free kick helped the La Liga leaders staging their own comeback to draw 4-4 and it was his sixth goal from a set piece in the league this season and none of them have been the same:

The last time a player in La Liga scored six free kicks goals in a season was Ronaldinho in 2006/07 and the season is far from over for Messi.

His goal last night took him to 28 in his career in La Liga and took him to top of the table as all time free kick scorers in Spain’s top tier.

At the weekend the 31 year old notched his 40th goals of the season, bagging a brace against Espanyol, meaning he’d scored 40 or more goals for the past 10 seasons.

He’s already become the club and league’s top scorers of all time and there’s not many records left for him to break but there’s plenty of time for him to break them.

There really isn’t anyone better than Lionel Messi.