Messi: "Fabregas will return to Barca"

Argentine striker Lionel Messi has paid rich tributes to Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas and said he hopes that the Spanish striker and he will be reunited at Nou Camp "at some point".

"Cesc has a place for Arsenal in his heart but he has Barcelona in his blood...There are only a few players in the world who can improve this squad we have but Cesc is one of them," Messi was quoted as saying by the Daily Express.

Despite the fact that Fabregas is under contract to Arsenal until 2014 and has pledged his future to the club on a number of occasions, he has been consistently linked with a return to Barcelona, the club he joined as a 10-year-old in 1997.

Messi said that he understood that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and Fabregas shared a father-son relationship, but Barcelona was like family. "Barcelona is his city and it is the club of him and his family."

Asked if he would play for an English club, 22-year-old Messi said, "I will be here for as long as they want me. I owe Barcelona more than for for giving me a chance - I owe them for changing my life."

Lionel Messi joins an elite list

Lionel Messi became only the sixth player in history to have bagged four goals in a UEFA Champions League match.

The Argentine's four-goal haul against Arsenal on Tuesday night took his team into the semi-finals and also won him another new record to go along with it.

Only five other players have managed the same feat namely, Marco Van Basten, Dado Prso, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Andrei Shevchenko and Simone Inzaghi.

Van Basten's goals came against IFK Gothenburg back in 1992 while playing for AC Milan.

It took another eight years before Lazio's Simone Inzaghi stunned Marseille with four of his own in a 5-1 win over the French giants.

Croatian hitman Prso netted four times in Monaco's 8-3 trouncing of Deportivo La Coruna in November 2003 while Van Nistelrooy achieved the same feat for Manchester United in 2004 against Sparta Prague at Old Trafford.

The last player to have achieved that feat was Shevchenko who bundled four goals past Fenerbahce for AC Milan in the 2005 edition of the UEFA Champions League.

2010 - Lionel Messi Barcelona 4-1 Arsenal

2005 - Andrei Shevchenko Fenerbahce 0-4 AC Milan

2004 - Ruud van Nistelrooy Manchester United 4-1 Sparta Prague

2003 - Dado Prso Monaco 8-3 Deportivo La Coruna

2000 - Simone Inzaghi Lazio 5-1 Marseille

1992 - Marco Van Basten AC Milan 4-0 IFK Gothenburg