Lionel Messi will get another chance to end his Chelsea hoodoo in February after an enthralling Champions League draw on Monday.
There was no shortage of stellar clashes drawn from the hat with Real Madrid locking horns with Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus clashing with Tottenham and Chelsea and Barcelona reuniting.
By the time February rolls around, it will be the ninth time Messi has lined up against the Blues and his ninth attempt at scoring past the west London side.
The Argentine has produced 29 shots against Chelsea with no avail - his worst record against a single club in his entire 13 year career.
It's perhaps surprising when you consider Messi's first clash with Chelsea, back in 2006, saw such a stellar performance from the man himself. The only thing it was lacking, was a goal.
Just a second season into his first team endeavours with Blaugrana, Messi was selected in the starting XI for the trip to Stamford Bridge. It came, uncannily enough, in the very same round Barcelona and Chelsea will duel this year.
Nevertheless, playing a Jose Mourinho team is never easy and Chelsea took the lead in the 59th minute as Thiago Motta put through his own net.
John Terry produced an own goal to match it late on, however, before Samuel Eto'o arrived with a back post header to secure a 2-1 win for the Spaniards. A subsequent 1-1 draw at the Camp Nou then ended the tie.
Mourinho had called upon an iron-fisted approach of dealing with Messi yet the mercurial Argentine pulled the rug from underneath their qualification hopes by drawing an early red card.
Such was the abundance and lethality of Messi's dribbling that Asier del Horno was dismissed for simply wiping out the young protege.
On the whole, though, nobody could touch him. Take a look at his highlights below:
The beginnings of greatness.
You can see that Messi is far from the finished product but he looks remarkably at ease amongst established Barcelona stars such as Xavi, Ronaldinho and Eto'o.
Nevertheless, Messi seems to have peaked early with that immaculate performance from 2006 and there's been little luck in front of goal since.
Chelsea face a more difficult task than ever keeping up their record against the five time Ballon d'Or winner this season. Messi already has 20 goals to his name in 2017-18 and his apparent nemesis - Petr Cech - is no longer a factor.
Batten the hatches, Blues fans.
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