Coutinho shares season-record with Messi

Anna Woodberry 5 years ago 3.6k |

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Coutinho and Messi are long-effort masters. BeSoccer

Philippe Coutinho joined team-mate Lionel Messi as the player to score the most goals from outside the box in Europe's top five leagues this season.

Coutinho finished his first (half) season with Barcelona in emphatic style, curling a wonderful strike past Real Sociedad to win 'Los Cules' their final league game.

Not only did it bring the Brazilian's tally for the year to 22 (12 with Liverpool, 10 with Barca) but he equalled Messi's record.

The Argentine was the only player to have knocked up four long-range efforts. However he was joined by his team-mate at the death.

Messi will welcome the prolific goalscoring of his peer as one area Barcelona have struggled in recent years is the ability to spread goals amongst the team, who are normally reliant on Messi's exploits.

This season, Messi has netted 45 times, followed by Luis Suarez (31), Coutinho (10) and Paulinho (9).