Lionel Messi Suffers Knee Injury In Meaningless Match; Run At Breaking Goals-In-A-Year Record May Be Over [UPDATE]

Lionel Messi came into today hoping to break Gerd Müller's 1972 record of 85 goals in one calendar year. Now, after suffering what appears to be a knee injury during this evening's Barcelona-Benfica match, fans are wondering if Messi will even take the pitch again in 2012.

The UEFA Champions League match was meaningless for Barça, having already secured the group win—and they fielded a squad of mostly reserves as expected. Messi entered in the 58th minute, and as you can see in the video suffered some sort of serious injury to his left knee in an 87th-minute scoring attempt.

If we receive any word as to Messi's condition, we'll update this post. For now, everyone in the world not named Cristiano Ronaldo is crossing his or her fingers. [Fox Soccer]

Update (4:51 p.m.): Barcelona is claiming Messi suffered a "minor" injury.