A brief history of Messi vs English opposition

Lionel Messi has faced Brazil, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and countless other international heavyweights across more than two decades, but never England.

Thanks to a combination of awkward scheduling, missed friendlies and the luck of tournament draws, Wednesday's meeting in Atlanta will be the first time Messi has ever lined up against the Three Lions.

That does not mean England will be stepping into completely unfamiliar territory. England's biggest clubs already know exactly what Messi can do.

If anything, the Premier League's elite have suffered more than almost anyone. Messi scored 27 goals in 35 Champions League appearances against English clubs, the highest tally any player has managed against opposition from one nation in the competition. He added numerous assists along the way and repeatedly delivered on the biggest European nights.

Arsenal endured the worst of it. Messi scored nine goals in just six Champions League appearances against the Gunners, a sequence forever defined by his astonishing four-goal demolition job at Camp Nou in April 2010.

Arsene Wenger's side arrived in Catalonia believing they could eliminate Barcelona after a thrilling first leg, only for Messi to produce one of the defining individual displays of the modern Champions League era. His first goal was a delicate chip over Manuel Almunia. The fourth was a composed dink after rounding the goalkeeper.

Somewhere in between, he seemed to touch every blade of grass while Arsenal chased shadows.

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Manchester City were not much better off. Messi scored seven times against them across six Champions League meetings, repeatedly exposing Manuel Pellegrini's and then Pep Guardiola's attempts to contain him. His hat-trick in Barcelona's 4-0 victory in 2016 remains one of his standout individual performances.

Manchester United at least reached a couple of Champions League finals before falling victim to Messi's brilliance.

Barcelona beat Sir Alex Ferguson's side in the 2009 and 2011 finals, with Messi scoring in both. His looping header in Rome remains one of the most iconic goals of his career given the size disadvantage against Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic.

Two years later at Wembley, he again dominated the occasion, scoring in Barcelona's 3-1 victory. Ferguson later described that Barcelona side as the finest team he had ever faced, with Messi orchestrating the performance from the centre of the pitch.

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Chelsea were the exception for a long time. Across his first eight meetings with the Blues, Messi somehow failed to score despite dominating possession and creating chance after chance.

Petr Cech denied him repeatedly. A missed penalty in 2012 became part of Chelsea folklore as Roberto Di Matteo's side marched towards an improbable European title. Eventually, though, even that resistance cracked. Messi scored three times across Barcelona's 2017-18 last-16 victory, finally putting one of the last stubborn statistical anomalies of his career to bed.

Liverpool and Tottenham escaped comparatively lightly, conceding two goals apiece, although Liverpool supporters will hardly need reminding of Messi's outrageous free-kick in Barcelona's 3-0 first-leg win in 2019. That the Reds somehow overturned the deficit at Anfield only added another chapter to one of the Champions League's greatest ties.

England, then, are not facing an unknown quantity. They are facing a player who has built part of his European legend by tormenting English football's biggest clubs.

The shirt will be different. The stakes will be higher. But the warning signs have been there for more than two decades.

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