Lionel Messi admitted he was relieved to finally find the net for Paris Saint-Germain after opening his account in their Champions League win over Manchester City on Tuesday.
PSG earned their first win in Group A much thanks to Messi's effort, which wrapped up the three points at the Parc des Princes after Idrissa Gana Gueye had opened the scoring.
The vintage slaloming goal was the 34-year-old's first for his new team upon leaving Barcelona this summer, following 21 years at Camp Nou.
The six-time Ballon d'Or winner spent four of those under City boss Pep Guardiola but came back to bite his old mentor once again.
And Messi admitted he had been "desperate" to get on the scoresheet, having gone without a goal in his first three appearances for PSG - a veritable drought by his high standards.
"It's true that I was getting desperate to score my first goal," he told Canal Plus.
"I hadn't played much recently and I had only played once here at home but I am settling into the team little by little."
Messi explained: "The more us forwards play together, the better our relationship will be. We all need to grow together and improve and keep giving our best."
His moment of magic even made manager Mauricio Pochettino celebrate - something the Argentine does not usually do.
"Usually I don't celebrate goals, but today I did," Pochettino said post-match. "I've spent 20 years watching him score goals from the other side of the opposite pavement and it's the first time he scores for a team I manage so I had to celebrate!
"You need this type of performance and players like him need to feel the back of the net. He needs to create links within the team after 20 years in Barcelona. He's feeling different things, there's a lot of new feelings for him."
He added: "First goal in our side, now that we are in the same side I enjoyed a lot and so happy to be here enjoying Leo's first goal.
"He's top class, I know I'm not saying anything new but I think with time he still has room to improve a lot."
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City boss Guardiola was also in awe of Messi's mesmerising strike, praising his players for their performance but admitting that, sometimes, his former star is "unstoppable."
"We dealt with PSG first of all, but we know it's impossible to control Leo for 90 minutes," the Citizens boss said.
"He was not much in touch with the ball - of course he was coming back from injury, he needed a bit of rhythm - but we know quite well when he can run and get close to the ball, he is unstoppable.
"What we have done is minimise, as much as possible, these kind of options and create the chances that we could create and I'm satisfied with the way we played. People can't deny that we were there," he affirmed.
"We arrived here, we did our game, but it's always a risk when you lose the ball and they can make one pass, especially with [Marco] Verratti, an exceptional, extraordinary player, and make contact with Neymar and Messi and they can run, it's difficult.
The former Barcelona manager went on to state: "We did a really good game, but we should have scored goals and we didn't do it. That's why we lost."
