Messi Breaks 87-Year-Old Barcelona Scoring Record With Hat Trick Against Osasuna

FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi celebrates the first of the three goals he would score in a 7-0 rout of Osasuna on Sunday. (Photo: EFE)

Lionel Messi set another scoring record by netting a hat trick to pace F.C. Barcelona's 7-0 home rout of Osasuna in the Spanish league, ensuring that the defending champions would stay in striking distance of leader Real Madrid before their "clasico" match next week.

The three goals bring Messi's career tally for Barcelona to 371 in all games — including exhibition matches — surpassed the 369 goals scored by Paulino Alcantara during his 1912-1927 run with Barça. The 26-year-old Messi was already the club's all-time leading scorer in official games.

Though Messi needed only 10 years to become Barça's top scorer ever, his goals-per-game average of 0.81 falls short of the 1.03 clip set by the Philippine-born Alcantara.

The Argentine has scored 233 goals in La Liga and seems certain sometime in the next year to overtake Telmo Zarra – who had 251 for Athletic Bilbao from 1940 to 1955 – as La Liga's all-time first-division scoring king.

The Associated Press and EFE contributed to this report.