Raphinha continued his scorching start to the season with another hat-trick, this time inspiring Barcelona to a 3-1 comeback win at Sevilla, and along the way, the Brazilian pulled off something that not even Lionel Messi managed to do across an entire career at the club.
The feat in question was a so-called “perfect hat-trick,” meaning all three goals came with different parts of the body: one header, one strike with his right foot, and one with his left. Messi scored a record 36 hat-tricks across his 17 seasons in LaLiga, more than any player in the competition’s history, yet none of them checked all three boxes in the same match.
The three goals came in a wild afternoon at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, where Sevilla had taken an early lead through Youssouf Fofana before Raphinha took over, scoring in each half to complete the turnaround and keep Barcelona’s perfect record intact through eight games across all competitions this season.
It’s the second hat-trick in seven games for the Brazilian, who had also scored three times just days earlier in a 7-2 rout of Racing Santander, taking his tally to 12 goals and putting him atop LaLiga’s scoring charts, further cementing his status as the man carrying Hansi Flick’s side through the opening stretch of the campaign.
The other Barcelona players to record a perfect hat-trick in LaLiga
Perfect hat-tricks have been a rare sight even across Barcelona‘s long history in the competition. Before Raphinha, the club had seen it happen only five times, with Julio Salinas, Iván de la Peña, Patrick Kluivert, and Luis Suárez the only other names on that list.
see also
Raphinha joins Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in impressive LaLiga feat, aims for the Portuguese’s mark
Kluivert stands out as the only other Barcelona player to have done it more than once, having pulled off the feat twice during his time at the club. Raphinha’s version arrives more than a decade after the last one, with Suárez the most recent Barcelona player to manage it back in 2015, making the Brazilian just the sixth player in the club’s history to check every box in a single match.
Messi’s hat-trick record still stands alone
The perfect hat-trick may have eluded him, but Messi’s overall numbers in that department remain untouchable. His 36 hat-tricks in LaLiga are not only a Barcelona record, they’re the most by any player in the competition’s history, comfortably ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo’s 34 for Real Madrid.
