Perfomance at the WC: Maradona `1986 vs Messi 2022?

Discussion in 'The Beautiful Game' started by Gregoire1, Dec 20, 2022.

?

Better perfomance

  1. Messi 2022

    8 vote(s)
    13.8%
  2. Maradona 1986

    50 vote(s)
    86.2%
  1. Isaías Silva Serafim

    Real Madrid
    Brazil
    Dec 2, 2021
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    We already agree that Messi is not only a dedicated goalscorer and that he is also responsible for progressing the ball and giving the final ball. But a few months ago I checked and Messi wasn't just the Barcelona player with the most shots on target. He is the player in the top 5 European leagues with the most shots on target. Since the 09/10 season there have been 2 or 3 seasons where Ronaldo had more shots on target than Messi. This indicates that no other club in the world produces so much for a single player than Barcelona for Messi.

    I agree that Zidane also tries this type of move a lot. But again, he leaves most goals to his team's dedicated goalscorer. In the case of France it was almost always Henry and in Real Madrid it was R9, Owen, Raul, etc... In Messi's case, he is his team's dedicated goalscorer and at the same time, he is involved in building and progressing the ball.
     
  2. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Quality and the context.

    Messi provided one of the greatest through balls in history of game against Netherlands at 0-0..
    It's a gamewinning, all time play counted as a single key pass with xG of something like 0,25.

    You dont measure that by statistics to quote Ray Hudson.

    Also all games are counted in. Someome might have stat padded against a single opponent. You mentioned Sane. Against who has he created chance and what did that amount to (to use your logic)?
     
  3. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Yes, there are some seasons earlier mostly with Guardiola in which Messi had the luxury of chances but that also reflected his goalscoring output. 91 goal in 69 matches.

    But latter Messi shot a lot and from unlikely positions which accumulated his xG which he excelled virtually every time
    The similar is about his Argentina career excepts hes had small stretches of form with not quite as good performance.
     
  4. Isaías Silva Serafim

    Real Madrid
    Brazil
    Dec 2, 2021
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    Between the season 14/15 and 16/17 (Liga + UCL) Messi took 311 shots on target. Suarez took 209 and Neymar took 193. Even in the numbers you gave for the three seasons of the MSN trio and the three following seasons, Messi is still the leader in shots inside the box. Even if it is like a smaller margin than that of Ronaldo to his teammates. Even so, Messi is the team leader in finishing from inside the box. Which goes to show that yes, he is the main finisher of the team. In a way that Zidane and Iniesta/Xavi never were. Neither in the club nor in the national team. So my point that Messi is charged for scoring because he is the main finisher remains.

    I looked at the average distance in yards of Messi's shots compared to Ronaldo's between the 17/18 and 19/20 season and Messi's average is 20.0 and Ronaldo's is 18.0. As you can see, it's not that far.
     
  5. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    I later also posted Messi’s heat maps for WC 2014, two Copa Americas (I believe it was CA 2019 and CA 2016), as well as the last Champions League season. Those looked similar, and if anything actually indicated deeper positioning. So it’s not just WC 2010. You can peruse his other heat maps on SofaScore if you’d like. His heat maps never look like the dedicated goalscorers’ heat maps.
     
  6. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Apologies in advance for the long response. I think this is an interesting topic and I also uncovered some interesting info, so this ended up being very lengthy:

    I think using shots on target is a bit biased since Messi is generally more accurate. But, in any event, Messi’s shot data for Barcelona shows him being typically essentially being the first among equals in shots in the box (i.e. the three were very close but he was #1; and then later, after Neymar left, Suarez and Messi were very close, as per the data I posted). That *is* meaningfully different than what happens with a true dedicated goalscorer that stays forward virtually all the time—for instance, with the data I showed for Ronaldo or Haaland, where no one else on their team is even close to them in shots in the box. And this is not at all surprising, since you’ll obviously be a stronger focus of the team’s chance production if you are staying forward/in-the-box much more (which those players clearly were, as per heat map data and just watching them). You’re simply more likely to be there to get on the end of a move.

    That said, I think your point is that it is *also* meaningfully different than what happens with the average attacking midfielder, who is very rarely going to even be the “first among equals” in shots in the box or get as many such shots as Messi. And that is definitely a fair point.

    However, I think we can’t miss that Messi’s number of shots taken is, in large part, a result of his own superior quality as a goalscorer/player. So, for instance, if Messi and Random-AM both make a late run into the box (something that AM’s quite often do), Messi is much more likely to end up with a shot from it, since his late runs into the box are more intelligent (often quicker in terms of acceleration into space) and therefore more likely to leave him open in space or able to get on the end of a rebound/deflection. If Messi and Random-AM both try to dribble people in or near the box and take a shot, Messi is more likely to end up with a shot from it, since he’s more likely to succeed at dribbling his man there. If Messi and Random-AM both try to do a one-two with a forward to help give them a slight opening for a shot in or near the box, Messi is more likely to end up with a shot from it, since his touch on those one-two passes is better and therefore easier for the forward to redirect well, his own first touch is better in those tight areas, and since Messi is more likely to recognize and shoot the moment he has an opening as opposed to waiting an extra moment and having a defender snuff it out. And to the extent Messi and Random-AM ever are occupying the central forward areas (both will do this at least some amount, since almost all systems have some fluidity—maybe Messi does it a bit more, but heat maps suggest not by much, if at all), Messi is more likely than Random-AM to have the quickness and first touch to actually end up with a shot opportunity from a teammates’ ball. I could go on.

    The bottom line is that Messi and another attacking midfielder could attempt to do all the same things, and Messi would likely end up with a boatload more shot attempts. And that’s why I note that most of the things Messi does for his goals are actually quintessential AM types of things (late runs, one-two’s with a forward, dribbling his man around the box and then shooting, etc.). These are the kind of things that other attacking midfielders are trying to do, but they just don’t necessarily have the immense quality to produce as many good opportunities for themselves with those actions (and/or perhaps they do and they aren’t as good as Messi at finishing). But, of course, sometimes, in particular games, Messi doesn’t manage to do these things better than those other players. Maybe that game he doesn’t finish better than other players like he normally does. Maybe his late runs don’t get him open. Maybe he hesitates a bit longer than normal with an opportunity (allowing a defender to snuff the chance out or making the chance much harder), or makes less-good-than-normal touches in or around the box. I could go on. Basically, Messi can obviously have games where he’s no better than a normal AM at this stuff, and that’ll result in him probably not scoring (and likely having fewer shots, at least in dangerous positions). But those normal AM’s can still be considered to have had a great game if they do other great stuff but don’t score, because we aren’t used to them doing this goalscoring stuff at Messi’s level. And so what I’m saying is that if Messi does other great stuff (which we both agree he can and does do), but just, on the night, doesn’t have this added quality regarding producing good chances for himself and scoring, it can still be a great match.

    _________________________________

    To provide some extra info, lets remember that we’re primarily talking about Messi’s failure to score as much for Argentina prior to WC 2022. So we’ve been talking about him at Barcelona, but the relevant question is more about what happens at Argentina. SofaScore has data on shots inside vs. outside the box in some WC’s (for some reason it’s absent in a few relevant ones though), and a few recent Copa Americas. So, using that data, between WC 2010, CA 2021, and CA 2019, Messi had 27 shots inside the box in 18 matches (1.5 shots in the box per match). WhoScored has data for WC 2018, WC 2014, and CA 2015 as well, and that amounted to 27 shots inside the box in 17 matches. If we add all that together, we are looking at Messi having just 1.54 shots inside the box for Argentina, over a data set that includes most of his pre-WC-2022 major tournaments. And I note that, while I don’t have inside vs. outside the box data for CA 2016, I do know that he had 17 shots in 5 matches in that tournament and SofaScore says 7 were free kicks, so even if every other shot was inside the box (very unlikely), it could not have been more than 2 inside the box shots per match. Notably, for reference, between WC 1998 and WC 2006, Zidane had 18 shots inside the box in 11 matches (1.64 shots inside the box).

    Now, remember, you and I have been talking about stats where Messi was getting roughly 3 shots inside the box per game for Barcelona. So, for Argentina, until WC 2022, he has gotten roughly half as many shots inside the box as he did at Barcelona. Not coincidentally, he scored plenty in WC 2022, when he also actually did have 3 shots inside the box per game! Anyways, why has Messi often gotten so many fewer shots inside the box for Argentina? Is it because of a lesser talent gap for Argentina compared to what Barcelona has had? That’s probably part of it, since teams with bigger talent gaps generate more good opportunities. Is it because they’ve had Higuain (and other strikers) and therefore have not given Messi as much tactical freedom to occupy central forward areas as often in a lot of these tournaments? Again, that’s probably part of it—we do know that, unlike anything we’d see at Barcelona, Higuain averaged a lot more shots inside the box than Messi in WC 2010 and WC 2014 (averaging 2.4 a game), and that in a more fluid system in WC 2022 Messi got a lot more inside the box shots. But part of it is also probably just that, for Argentina, Messi hasn’t always been quite as good at doing the things that generate him so many good scoring opportunities. For instance, I’ve actually posted years ago (arguing with a very big Messi fan) about how I don’t think Messi made late runs into the box nearly as well in WC 2014 as he typically did and that that probably resulted in a lot fewer good opportunities being generated for him. I also think sometimes his one-two play with Argentina have just been a bit off his normal level, and have posted about that many times as well. Meanwhile, in terms of finishing, we know that, while for Barcelona Messi has outscored his xG better than essentially anyone on record, it’s pretty clear that he did not carry that freakish finishing over to Argentina.

    So I think the overall picture we get is that Messi has often scored a good deal less for Argentina but has also gotten quite a lot fewer chances in the box than he did for Barcelona. His shots-in-the-box numbers for Argentina actually really do resemble a player like Zidane (again, the data for multiple tournaments has Messi at 1.54 inside-the-box shots per match, while Zidane averaged 1.64 inside-the-box shots per match between WC 1998 and WC 2006) much more than they even resemble his own numbers for Barcelona. And he also just doesn’t outdo his xG in the very unique way that he did for Barcelona. Basically, for Argentina, Messi as a goalscorer and is clearly more like a normal attacking midfielder. Part of this is probably an often less fluid system with a striker ahead of him, but a lot of it is IMO a combination of: (1) him just not excelling as well at the things he normally does exceptionally well to generate shots for himself, and (2) him not finishing as exceptionally well. In other words, it’s him being more like a normal attacking midfielder in terms of goalscoring prowess, resulting in his number of good chances and his goals looking much more like a normal attacking midfielder. And my point is that those other attacking midfielders (including all-time greats) can be deemed to have had great matches when they too don’t exhibit Barcelona-Messi-level goalscoring prowess, because, like Messi, they can (and do) do tons of other great stuff for their team beyond that.
     
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  7. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #857 lessthanjake, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    The fact that there’s still someone arguing that Messi “has less contribution and responsibility in the development of the offensive phase as dedicated playmakers” and that “[t]he data also strongly supports that within the scopes of the Argentinian team Messi's primary responsibility is the goal and final pass” is breathtaking when we realize that that conclusion is based to a significant degree on an incorrect statistic that, when corrected, completely contradicts that conclusion.

    _________________

    Furthermore, while the above fact is totally discrediting to the poster, I note that the further claim that “there is no evidence that . . . Messi is the equivalent of Iniesta / Zidane / playmaker if he does not score,” is odd, when we realize that we actually do have lots of relevant data on Iniesta as an example. For instance, we have this sort of progressive passing data on Iniesta, at least from 2017-2018. Between league and CL, Iniesta averaged 6.68 progressive passes per 90 mins, 8.75 passes into the attacking third per 90 mins, 2.36 passes into the penalty area per 90 mins, and 279.6 progressive distance per 90 mins. These are really good numbers—evidencing Iniesta’s quality. But in the seasons we have for Messi (i.e. from 2017-2018 onward), between league and CL, Messi has averaged 8.35 progressive passes per 90 mins, 7.09 passes into the attacking third per 90 mins, 3.91 passes into the penalty area per 90 mins, and 271.8 progressive distance per 90 mins. It looks pretty similar overall, and the overall picture leans towards Messi due to progressive passes being the most relevant/telling statistic here (for instance, passes into the attacking third can include short passes back and forth across the attacking-third line, whereas progressive passes cannot include passes like that and must really meaningfully progress the ball). Of course, one could say that was not Iniesta’s best season, but his numbers there are high, players don’t typically differ in these stats very much by year (particularly so with the same team), and, if anything, his role at that point involved a little more ball progression responsibility than it did in the past because Xavi wasn’t there. Meanwhile, of course, we’re talking about quality outside of scoring, and we know from a larger data set on WhoScored that Iniesta averaged 2.1 dribbles per match, while Messi averaged 4.4 dribbles per match. In terms of sheer volume of general involvement, we can see from WhoScored’s data that Iniesta averaged 64.6 passes per match, while Messi has averaged 57.1—quite similar (and Messi’s number of touches overall is actually probably higher, though I don’t have that data). And, importantly, we also know that the difference in assists between the two is absolutely enormous (and relatedly that Messi also dwarfed Iniesta in key passes). So yeah, there certainly is plenty of evidence that Messi is at least the equivalent of such a player if he does not score. Indeed, the overall picture there is one where Messi does quite a lot more outside of scoring, which then would be mitigated at least somewhat by Iniesta’s superior defensive contribution. Of course, if we aren’t hopelessly agenda-driven, we can also know this just from having watched the players.
     
  8. Isaías Silva Serafim

    Real Madrid
    Brazil
    Dec 2, 2021
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    I have to make some corrections. You said some half-truths. It is true that the number of shots drops considerably if we compare the numbers in the national team and in the club. But Messi is still almost always at the top of his team in number of shots on target. In 2010 he averaged 2.4 and was second on his team behind Higuain at 2.8. In 2014 he was second in his team with 1.1 while Di Maria was first with 1.8. In 2018 Messi was first with 1.5 while Aguero was second with 0.8. Already in 2022 he was also the first with 2.6 while the second was Julian Alvarez with 1.1. Messi is invariably the first or second of his national team with more finishes on target. In the 2021 Copa America he was first with 1.6 while second was Lautaro with 1.3. In 2019 he was third with 1.2 while Aguero and Lautaro averaged 1.3. In 2016 again he was first with 1.8 while Higuain was second with 1.5. Zidane in 2006 had an average much lower than the top 3. In 2002 he doesn't even appear in the ranking. Only in 98 he was in the top 3 but the average of the 3 players was exactly the same. 1.3.

    So I agree with you that in the national team he has a much lower average of finishes than in the club because at the club he has better teammates and more synergy. But my point still remains that he is also the team's main finisher. You see players who are pure #9 in their clubs with less shots than Messi playing in Argentina because they change their style of play so that Messi gets the goals. Players like Higuain, Tevez, Aguero, Lautaro and Julian who are the main finishers of their clubs need to change their style of play when playing for the national team because that role is Messi's there
     
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  9. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    Good, glad you see the light. As I said, Messi is the deserved MVP. The players that were compared did not stat pad, so that is not much of a point there. The single mention of Sane was a reference point for the number.
     
  10. carlito86

    carlito86 Member+

    Jan 11, 2016
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    #860 carlito86, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    The best CL performance of Lionel Messi against a big team post Neymar/Xavi/iniesta

    2018-2023

    Messi vs Liverpool 2018/19
    First leg


    Vs

    the best champions league performance of Cristiano Ronaldo post Modric/casimiero/Kroos

    Cristiano Ronaldo vs atletico Madrid 2018/19
    Second leg



    Liverpool 2018/19
    2336 ELO points

    Barcelona 2018/19
    2305 ELO points

    Same level with minimal difference


    Juventus 2018/19
    2183 ELO points

    Atletico Madrid
    2177 ELO points

    Same level with minimal difference





    Goals

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    3

    Lionel Messi
    2



    Successful dribbles
    Lionel Messi
    9

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    6


    Accurate passes

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    31

    Lionel Messi
    27



    Touches

    Lionel Messi
    71

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    68



    Possession lost

    Lionel Messi
    22 times

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    19 times



    Key passes

    Lionel Messi
    1

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    0


    Ground duels

    Messi
    22

    Ronaldo
    15



    Ground duels won

    Messi
    14

    Ronaldo
    9





    aerial duels won

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    4

    Lionel Messi
    1

    Total duels won(ground and aerial)

    Lionel Messi
    15

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    13


    Fouls won

    Lionel Messi
    4

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    3


    Sofascore rating

    Cristiano Ronaldo
    9.5

    Messi
    9.3

    https://www.sofascore.com/player/lionel-messi/12994
    https://www.sofascore.com/player/cristiano-ronaldo/750

    Ronaldo can score hattricks in KO matches as a Messi esque player

    he can score hattricks in KO matches as a Gerd muller esque player(vs Bayern Munich 2017)

    He can do both
    He has done both and if you want more examples I can provide them

    Any version of R9 can't do this and you talk about him being some type of UFO



    Your attempt to portray Cristiano as a player who is not great outside of goals is so divorced from reality it boggles the mind
     
    SayWhatIWant repped this.
  11. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    I’m not sure why you’re talking about shots on target specifically (since that depends in part on the player’s accuracy on their shots). But more pertinently, I’m focusing here on inside-the-box shots, since those are the best chances and outside-the-box shots are typical shots taken by an AM rather than being what a team produces for a dedicated goalscorer. He gets way more shots inside the box for Barcelona than for Argentina (except in WC 2022, where he, not coincidentally, scored a lot), such that his number of inside-the-box shots for Argentina looks like Zidane’s for France, rather than looking like his own for Barcelona. I think that’s due to a combination of factors relating to the team (less talent gap, less tactical fluidity, etc.), but is also just him not having been as good at creating such chances for himself (i.e. his late runs aren’t as frequent or as good, his one-two’s are a bit off compared to at Barcelona, etc.). What that does overall though is just make his profile of chances (and his scoring) look a lot more similar to a normal AM than to him at Barcelona.

    In a sense you referring to shots stats that include outside-the-box shots does get to something I think is a good point though. And that is that, despite not taking nearly as many inside the box shots, Messi did still often take a lot of shots for Argentina. It’s notably less overall than in Barcelona (FBref indicates Messi averaged about 5-6 shots per 90 mins for Barcelona in the years they have data for—while their data had 3.69 shots per 90 mins over a bunch of tournaments for Argentina). But it is still more than a typical AM would take. For instance, between WC 1998 and WC 2006, Zidane took 3.01 shots per 90 mins. That’s a bit less than Messi, despite Zidane not having fewer shots inside the box. Logically, this seems to reflect that Messi took more shots outside the box. And that gets to the point I think you’re trying to make—that Messi was still taking a good portion of his team’s shots, even if he wasn’t getting all that many shots inside the box. And I think that Messi not converting a higher percent of those outside the box shots for Argentina can be criticized. Indeed, as per data I’ve uncovered earlier in this thread, I think Messi typically vastly outdid his xG on those sorts of shots for Barcelona but hasn’t done so for Argentina. But the reality is that outside the box shots are inherently speculative, so the level at which we can criticize someone for taking and missing perhaps an extra outside-the-box shot per match (which is what it would be as compared to that Zidane data—slightly less than one extra long shot per match) seems limited to me.

    Thus, I guess I think the data leads to the following more narrow critique regarding Messi at Argentina: As compared to a typical AM (I’ve used Zidane as an example), Messi took a little bit more long shots. And in the sense that taking maybe an extra long shot per game extra and missing it is a negative (since it ends a possession with a miss), then I think we can tally that as a negative compared to those players. But I think the bottom line is this. If Player A does a ton of great AM stuff and we say they had a great game, while Player B does a similar ton of great AM stuff (obviously not the exact same actions, but non-goalscoring actions of similar value) but misses an extra outside the box shot, I don’t really know that that transforms it into not a great game or is meaningfully that different. And that’s pretty much where I think we’re at here in comparing Messi for Argentina to great attacking midfielders. You’re right that he was a bit more of a scoring focal point than Zidane was, but that largely manifested itself in taking a bit more outside the box shots.
     
  12. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #862 lessthanjake, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    I’m not really sure what you’re trying to show here, by taking one particular match. I don’t see anything particularly impressive from an outside-of-scoring perspective in what you listed with regards to that Ronaldo performance, except the 6 dribbles (it’s otherwise stuff like 31 completed passes, 0 key passes, etc.). That dribbling is impressive, of course, but surely you’re not suggesting that was typical or even remotely common? Ronaldo averaged 1.5 dribbles per game in Serie A that season and 2 per game in the CL. And over all the data WhoScored has (league and CL from 2009-2010 onwards), Ronaldo averaged 1.6 dribbles per game. A 6-dribble performance is surely good, but it wasn’t common or typical and we shouldn’t pretend it was. To actually add to Ronaldo’s performance that game, I don’t see this in your post, but Ronaldo also had 5 progressive passes—which is good. But this is a player who averaged just 1.57 progressive passes per 90 mins in the CL that year, and 1.87 progressive passes per 90 mins over all the data we have (league/CL from 2017-2018 onwards). So, again, this obviously wasn’t common or typical. Ultimately, no one is saying Ronaldo is incapable of producing outside of goalscoring. All footballers can and do—certainly including Cristiano Ronaldo. But it’s a question of how much and how often. And players certainly differ in that, definitely including Messi and Ronaldo.
     
  13. Isaías Silva Serafim

    Real Madrid
    Brazil
    Dec 2, 2021
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    Maybe I'm expressing myself incorrectly. But my point is that Messi takes more shots than his team's "dedicated goalscorers" who in theory should have many more shots than his AM. This is not the case in Argentina because most of the shots go to Messi there. And his "dedicated goalscorers" assume a role of leaving the box for Messi to enter and finish. It is very different from Zidane's context, where his "dedicated goalscorer" can fulfill the same role in the national team as he does in the club and take the goals for himself.

    I'll add context to your last line.

    If Player A does a ton of great AM stuff playing behind a CF that is the dedicated goalscorer of the team and we say they had a great game, while Player B does a similar ton of great AM stuff but his #9 plays opening space for him so that this AM takes the majority of the finishes from the team and he still does'nt scores, so player A's performance was better than player B's because A is not the main finisher on the team while B is.

    Reverse the roles. Imagine that Messi plays like an AM and provides the passes for Higuain to finish like he does at the club. Now imagine that France plays for Zidane. And Henry plays a role to open space for Zidane to step into the box and score the goals but Zidane fails to score the goals. In that case, Messi's performance will be better because in Zidane's case, he was the main finisher so that his #9 opened space for him to finish but he failed. While Messi played in such a way that his scorer stayed in the box to take the goals, so he had no way to enter the area because there was already someone there fulfilling that function.
     
  14. Isaías Silva Serafim

    Real Madrid
    Brazil
    Dec 2, 2021
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    I think he didn't like (I didn't either) your Heatmap comparison of Ronaldo and Haaland. Of course they are dedicated goal scorers. But Ronaldo does MUCH more than Haaland outside of goalscoring. And this can also be seen when comparing Ronaldo's Heatmap with Haaland's. Ronaldo combined Haaland's finishing with Mbappé's overall game. But that's not what we're discussing right now lol
     
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  15. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    Historical Champions League statistics:
    CL1possession.png CL1scoringassists.png CL1shooting.png
    Some of these statistics do not go far enough back in their peaks, but on the matter of the discussion:
    Messi has less touches in the defensive 3rd compared to other forwards like Benzema and Ronaldo - so he is contributing less to counters / build up in that area of the pitch. Obviously nearly no touches in the penalty box as he is not expected to defend set pieces - but that is an area of the game those forwards provide that he does not. A higher volume of touches in the middle and attacking 3rd as you would expect, and a very comparable volume of touches in the box compared to strikers - strikers who are often on the receiving end of dead ball situations.
    As compared to Benzema and Lewandowski (even Ronaldo who as you will remember played as winger for a chunk of his early career), there is nothing superior about his non-penalty goal rate. Obviously, if we were to scrutinize this data in the knockouts, it would look much less favourable. All this in spite of taking more shots per game than Benzema, Lewandowski by a margin (Ronaldo has the highest volume, but we all know that). His assist rate also does not eclipse Benzema or Ronaldo, and is clearly inferior to a dedicated playmaker like De Bruyne.
    At the highest level of the game, there is not much to distinguish Messi here, and this includes group stages - when he has a noticeable drop off compared to Ronaldo in knockouts.
     
  16. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #866 lessthanjake, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    I do get your point. But I guess my point is that there’s clearly not a significant difference in this regard when their number of shots taken inside the box is similar (indeed, in the data I presented, Zidane had more), and Messi’s heat maps for Argentina show him not having tons of involvement in the box (i.e. it generally looks a lot like the heat map of normal AMs). If your heat map doesn’t show you in the box much and you don’t have all that many shots inside the box, then it certainly would appear you weren’t displacing the CF in the center-forward portion of the pitch abnormally often. To the extent Messi and Zidane took a different number of shots, it was in outside the box shots—which aren’t shots that are typically taken by someone displacing a CF. So I don’t think Messi was displacing CF’s for Argentina nearly as much as you’re thinking (or as much as he did for Barcelona to be honest). His heat maps and shots-inside-the-box suggest he wasn’t doing that much more than a typical AM like Zidane did, and that’s consistent with the fact that he has often been played in a deeper role for Argentina than for Barcelona, particularly in earlier years (PDG correctly referred to Messi being widely understood to have had a notably deeper role for Argentina in WC 2010 than he did at the time for Barcelona, for instance, but that was true of other tournaments as well).

    I think you’re focusing to some degree on number of shots taken by specific players in comparison, but that doesn’t really get to the question as well IMO for a couple reasons: (1) the most relevant question here is how often Messi was displacing center-forward positions, not how often a striker like Higuain or someone might’ve fluidly vacated that space for someone else—so the most relevant statistic is Messi’s inside-the-box shot stats and heat maps, which look similar to Zidane’s; and (2) Argentina had a bunch of great forwards during much of this time and rotated/subbed them a good bit such that often no single one of them would’ve necessarily had tons of total shots. But, even so, we can see things like the following: As noted previously, in WC 2010 and WC 2014, when he was the main starter, Higuain averaged 2.4 shots inside the box per match. I don’t know what that number was exactly in CA 2016 when he was the main starter too, but I know he had 2.7 total shots per match (3.33 per 90, since he was subbed out a bit) and virtually none of his shots for Argentina were ever outside the box so it was very likely similar to the WC 2010 and 2014 numbers in terms of shots inside the box. And in CA 2019, when Aguero was played as the main striker, Aguero averaged 2.0 shots inside the box per match (but was a sub one match, so this was actually 2.31 per 90 mins). For reference, in WC 2006—where Thierry Henry played a real CF role—Henry had 2.43 shots inside the box per match (was 2.40 per 90 mins). These numbers aren’t exactly suggestive of Messi displacing his CF a lot more. (And in a less data-driven sense, it’s also worth noting that Henry actually never hit anywhere near his club form or goalscoring when playing for France, which is not really suggestive of him having been able to simply “fulfill the same role in the national team as he does in the club and take the goals for himself”).
     
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  17. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #867 lessthanjake, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    I’m baffled as to what you’re trying to prove here. In this statistical comparison you have made, Messi really obviously comes out ahead of all these players. It’s actually quite shocking how superior he looks in overall contribution and as a player. There’s so much here that I’ll have to organize it by general category:

    Scoring

    - Messi has the most goals and non-penalty goals per 90 mins—albeit not by an enormous amount over Lewandowski in 2nd place.

    - Meanwhile, Messi has outdone his xG by a lot more than anyone there, clearly suggesting he is the best finisher of the bunch (and by a good bit, as compared to a few of them). Indeed, as I mentioned above, he has scored the most per 90 mins, but he’s actually way below Ronaldo, Lewandowski, and Benzema in expected non-penalty goals per 90 mins. Messi only has 0.48 expected non-penalty goals per 90 mins, compared to 0.80, 0.61, and 0.60 for Lewandowski, Benzema, and Ronaldo. His superior finishing makes him nevertheless score the most non-penalty goals per 90 mins.

    Assisting

    - You talk about Messi being “clearly inferior to a dedicated playmaker like De Bruyne” in assist rate, but Messi’s expected assisted goals per 90 mins is 0.42, compared to 0.40 for De Bruyne. So Messi has actually been slightly superior in chance creation (to a player in KDB who is an all-time great chance creator!). KDB just has a higher assist rate because of a difference in finishing by their teammates. And the rest of these players are nowhere in the same galaxy as Messi in expected assisted goals, with the next highest being Benzema at just 0.24.

    Dribbling

    - Messi is obviously just in a completely different league to the others in dribbling—being miles ahead of the others, with 4.38 successful dribbles per 90 mins, compared to the next highest player in this comparison having just 1.79. As you mention, he’s also the most fouled player of all of them.

    Ball Progression with Passing

    - You conveniently don’t include progressive passing stats (odd, since we’ve been talking about those stats so much in this discussion), but Messi is completely in another league to these other players in that, with KDB being the only one even remotely close. Here are those stats:

    Progressive Passes per 90 mins:
    1. Messi: 7.57
    2. De Bruyne: 5.39
    3. Benzema: 2.81
    4. Kane: 2.63
    5. Lewandowski: 1.75
    6. Ronaldo: 1.69

    Passes into the Attacking Third per 90 mins:
    1. Messi: 6.46
    2. De Bruyne: 5.19
    3. Kane: 2.40
    4. Benzema: 2.31
    5. Ronaldo: 1.57
    6. Lewandowski: 1.07

    Passes or Crosses into the Penalty Area per 90 mins:
    1. Messi: 3.57
    2. De Bruyne: 2.66
    3. Benzema: 1.93
    4. Lewandowski: 1.11
    5. Kane: 1.00
    6. Ronaldo: 0.91

    Progressive Passing Distance per 90 mins:
    1. Messi: 247.4
    2. De Bruyne: 215.6
    3. Benzema: 85.0
    4. Kane: 77.4
    5. Ronaldo: 67.0
    6. Lewandowski: 42.9

    General Involvement in Play

    - He’s the most involved in play, having the most passes completed, most passes received, and most touches per 90 minutes of any of them. He is way above all of them in this, except De Bruyne, who he is merely slightly ahead of.

    - Of note, Messi even has more touches than De Bruyne in the middle third of the pitch (36.2 touches per 90 mins for Messi vs. 34.4 touches per 90 mins for KDB). And those two are, of course, miles higher than the other ones in this (Benzema is 3rd with 19.9).

    Defending

    - Amusingly, for all the talk of him being a defensive liability, Messi is ahead of everyone besides Kevin De Bruyne in tackles won + interceptions per 90 mins. KDB of course has the most with 2.00 per 90 mins, but Messi is 2nd with 1.00 per 90 mins, and Lewandowski, Kane, Benzema, and Ronaldo have 0.90, 0.81, 0.69, and 0.57 respectively. This despite the fact that Messi has played on a bit more of a slow-tempo team than the other players, presumably leaving fewer opposition possessions to take the ball.

    - While KDB is well ahead of the rest in Tackles + Interceptions per 90 mins, Messi is actually a very close 2nd place in easily the most important type of these—tackles in the attacking third. KDB is 1st with 0.29 per 90 mins, and Messi is 2nd with 0.28 per 90 mins. Lewandowski is close to those two in this, while the the other three are well off the mark.

    Miscellaneous Goal/Shot Creation Stats

    - In FBref’s Shot Creating Actions per 90 minutes stat (one should look up the definition to get an idea of what it means—it’s a bit of a complicated metric), Messi is easily in 1st place, with 6.57. KDB is 2nd with 5.50, and the rest are all clustered well behind, between 3.27 and 3.91.

    - In FBref’s Goal Creation Actions per 90 minutes stat (again, one should look up the definition to fully understand it), Messi is easily in 1st place, with 1.13. KDB is 2nd with 0.97. Lewandowski is 3rd with 0.70, and Kane, Ronaldo, and Benzema bring up the rear with 0.53, 0.52, and 0.39 respectively.

    ___________________________________

    The overall picture is Messi being the best at essentially everything. KDB recovers the ball a bit more. And, as you’ve noted, Messi wins the least aerial duels, and has a bit fewer touches in the defensive third and penalty area (this stuff all at least partly relating to others defending set pieces, as you mentioned). He is dispossessed a bit more. That’s about it. He’s ahead of everyone else at essentially everything else.

    Any reasonable person looking at these statistics would come to the conclusion that Messi is the best player here by a significant margin. It is shocking and quite telling that you could look at these statistics and think they lead to a conclusion that “there is not much to distinguish Messi here.”

    I will leave a link to the comparison here, just because I want others to be able to see all the data as easily as possible: https://fbref.com/en/stathead/playe...74ece&player_id5=e46012d4&player_id6=21a66f6a
     
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  18. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #868 lessthanjake, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    It’s an interesting comparison, but I do think Xavi played a noticeably deeper role than Zidane did. Despite Spain’s total domination of possession for most of that World Cup, we can see from Xavi’s heat map that he still had about 1/3 of his touches in the defensive half of the pitch (which tracks with SofaScore stats showing 34% of his completed passes were in the defensive half). That was actually similar to Xabi Alonso, who also had 34% of his completed passes in the defensive half. Busquets was at 51% in the defensive half, and Iniesta was at 25%. People refer to that Spain team as having a double pivot, but I think it was much more like two CM’s (Xavi and Alonso) with a DM (Busquets), and Iniesta playing a kind of left sided advanced-playmaker role.

    Zidane played in a more counterattacking system, but still only had 26% of his passes/touches in the defensive half in both WC 1998 and WC 2006—most similar to Iniesta out of the Spain 2010 teams. Vieira was at 42.5% passes in the defensive half in WC 2006 (though his heat map looks even a bit more defensive), while Makelele was at 45.5% passes in the defensive half in that World Cup (heat map looks a bit more defensive than that). In WC 1998, Deschamps was actually only at 32% (though, again, I’d say his heat map of all actions looks closer to 50/50), while Petit and Karembeu had a lot of their actions in the defensive half. Given all that, I think the most accurate way to describe France in 2006 is a double pivot of Vieira/Makelele along with a classic #10 AM in Zidane. Meanwhile, France in 1998 played in a 4-4-2, so they had (1) two wide midfielders (Petit and Karembeu) who played fairly defensively (with Petit drifting a bit more centrally than Karembeu did, because Zidane liked to drift left himself), (2) Deschamps playing something of a ball-winning CM/DM role; and (3) Zidane in a classic #10 AM role.

    Not trying to make any particular overarching point with any of this, and this is obviously way off topic and only tangentially related to any ongoing discussion, but I found the subject matter at least somewhat interesting. The way I see it, these roles are all different and whatnot, but I think Zidane and Iniesta were the most similar (including in the percent of touches in the defensive half, and in their tendency to drift left), Xabi Alonso and Deschamps were maybe the most similar comparators to each other, and Xavi kind of doesn’t really have a great analogue in France.
     
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  19. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    There is no statistically significant difference in his NPG per 90 rate, in spite of taking a higher volume of shots than all those players (CR7 aside) and having a comparable number of touches in the box in spite of those players being on the receiving end of dead ball situations, whereas he delivers those dead balls. The xG data is MISSING for many seasons, so you are fooling yourself in making career stat comparisons to the xG for a few seasons. This is why the stat is underlined. So, in your haste, your point is entirely invalid since you cannot compare his career scoring rate to his later xG rate. His scoring productivity dropped off in CL compared to his earlier years, as would his xG naturally.

    If you think a 0.75 NPG rate is a better return as compared to 0.70 by Benzema who played for Lyon, took less shots per game, and was a secondary striker for much of his career, you are gravely mistaken. We also know that Cristiano spent a significant amount of his early CL career as a winger, so his ratio is slightly lower. If the analysis could be restricted to knockouts, it would look dire for Messi. So what we can tell is that Messi has more goalscoring opportunity, but is not more productive.

    Messi is obviously the best player at the final pass out of all the forwards provided. I made a comparison of data spanning their entire CL careers. Your expected assist stats cover only a period of recent years where Messi did not make deep runs in the CL and scored less than his historical rate and is not the same sample size. What we can tell, is over their careers Messi assisted at a very comparable rate to Benzema and Cristiano, despite being the designated dead ball specialist for his teams. That does not suggest superior productivity assisting in the CL from open play compared to those two players - in fact, it is likely slightly inferior.


    Certainly the best dribbler out of all those players. But there is no way for you to make an assessment as to the productivity of said dribbling.
    To illustrate:

    2:43 is an example of dribbling that is not particularly productive. You can find several examples of that.
    The most productive dribbling is the dribbling that actually sets up a goal opportunity. It is occurring in the most congested area of the pitch and is the most threatening.
    In that regard, Messi produces 0.63 dribbles per game that lead to a shot as compared to the 0.65 from Harry Kane. So the most elite dribbler in the game, is utilizing his dribbling to produce shots at the same rate as Harry Kane. Make of that what you will.


    Ball Progression with Passing

    - You conveniently don’t include progressive passing stats (odd, since we’ve been talking about those stats so much in this discussion), but Messi is completely in another league to these other players in that, with KDB being the only one even remotely close. Here are those stats:

    Nothing convenient here, I just do not have career data for this and I was showing stats for their entire careers. Secondly, you would need to contextualize the statistics within the context of their respective teams. Benzema and Ronaldo often played in later rounds against teams that dominated possession, while Messi played for teams that dominated possessions. When we spoke about this with the WC, we could make a comparison since the top 3 teams and players played in teams with similar possession / passing stats. That Messi passes more than those forwards is unquestionable anyway - the prior question was whether Messi has the equivalent contribution / performance of the best playmaker in the world when he does not score - he does not and the data clearly bears that out.

    You are confusing yourself. The point you are making is confusing offensive contribution with Messi and his team's style of play. These players do not evolve in the same system. What we do see is that other forwards such as Benzema and Ronaldo have far more touches in the defensive 3rd which you are conveniently ignoring. That clearly shows far more participation in initiating offensive transitions and movements than Messi and a significant amount of time spent farther from goal than Messi. Messi has far less touches in the defensive 3rd than De Bruyne which is another hint that his touches are higher up when the team has established possession. That possession and those touches are not being converted positively to goals at the rate you would expect - which simply means Messi likes to touch the ball and participates in its circulation, but is not as efficient with his ball reception as others.

    In fact, he is the player who is the most dispossessed (EXCLUDING failed dribbles, which he has a lot):

    Dispossessions per game
    Messi 2.66
    Lewandowski 1.81
    Benzema 1.56
    Kane 1.53
    De Bruyne 1.23
    Ronaldo 1.00


    As for the analysis on defending, it is a very poor and selective one. One need only look at the fact that he is the player who is dribbled past the most, his absence in the defensive penalty area, his number of clearances, and his aerial duels to know that he lags in every other category. He produced more tackles, but he does not track back to the same extent - we all know he is the player that walks the most on the surface of this earth.


    What we are left with is a player who is more participatory in the movement of the ball during the possession phase of the game, who takes more shots and makes more passes, with less participation in the build-up and transition phase of the game, with less participation in the defensive aspects of the game, but with an equivalent rate of goals and assists. What I see is an insistence on giving style / tactical points which are the byproduct of a player's playstyle in conjunction with a possession heavy system rather than some testament that a player's ability is providing something meaningfully more concrete. What is most telling about these stats is that Ronaldo and Benzema accumulated games against tougher opponents, making a series of deeper runs, and yet maintain productivity throughout. There is no Messi superiority in the CL, quite the contrary.

    Also, since your behaviour in our last conversation @lessthanjake , I would prefer that you stop engaging me in any more conversations.
     
  20. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    I agree that Ronaldo does more than Haaland outside of goalscoring (and he certainly did way more when he was Haaland’s age). I will note, though, that Ronaldo’s heat map that I posted is actually suggestive of that—with Haaland legitimately having very few touches outside the box. The point I was making with Ronaldo’s heat map and other strikers I provided heat maps for (including Haaland, Suarez, and Aguero) was just we can see much more concentration in the box for them than with Messi. But of course, even among those four strikers I listed, there’s definitely distinctions to be made when looking at their heat map (and when watching them play). Haaland is definitely the most in-the-box focused of the four.

    Not entirely related to any particular argument here, but I think Mbappe is definitely a really good comparator to Ronaldo as a player. Mbappe would obviously be quite lucky to end up with as good of a career as Ronaldo, but they’re similar types of players. He’s not quite at Ronaldo’s level as a goalscorer yet, but we should remember that he’s only the age of Ronaldo in Ronaldo’s last season at Manchester United, so it’s possible he may similarly improve in this regard. The high-end for where Mbappe could end up in terms of all-time greatness is probably even higher than Ronaldo, just by virtue of being on such a good NT that he has already won a WC and could certainly win another. But, most likely, he won’t sustain his greatness for all that long for one reason or another.
     
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  21. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #871 lessthanjake, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    Messi has scored more, and we know in general that he has consistently outperformed xG more than these other players, because he did so in league play too (and we also have that 2010-2014 data from 538 that I’ve linked to repeatedly that shows he was an outlier in outperforming xG back then too). It’s a very reasonable inference to say he outperformed xG in seasons we don’t have xG data for, but you’re right we don’t necessarily know for sure if that’s why he got more goals in those other seasons and that there’s a bit of a mismatch in matching the goals per game and the xG since xG stats cover a shorter timespan.

    Regarding some of your more minor points, Benzema gets fairly close to Messi’s goalscoring with fewer shots because Benzema’s shots are on average much closer to the goal (as you can see in the data)—reflecting that Benzema plays as more of a dedicated forward than Messi. Same with Lewandowski. The bottom line is that, while these players scored in different manners, Messi has scored the most of this group of players, and all evidence we have (which includes CL xG data starting in 2017-2018, general xG-type data from 2010-2014, and league xG data starting in 2017-2018) indicates that he does so in large part by outperforming xG more than the others. But yes, you are right that he also does so with more shots taken than all but Ronaldo—largely by virtue of taking more long shots than the others.

    But bottom line is he’s scored more and all evidence is that he finished better. If you want to quibble about having taken more long shots, then be my guest (I *believe* you’re on record here suggesting that launching lots of speculative long shots is overall a good thing to do though, so it’d be a bit disingenuous for you to suggest now that the cost of doing that is really high).

    It’s a good point about expected assists being from a shorter timespan (I’d forgotten about this timespan mismatch), but that does still cover a substantial time period (5.5 seasons), where we can see Messi is ahead of all the others in expected assisted goals (and way ahead of everyone but KDB). And in terms of assists per game rather than expected assisted goals, he’s ahead of everyone but KDB over the full time period (and note: if we included KDB’s Europa League numbers too—which come from a year where he was the Bundesliga’s best player, so this was prime KDB—his assist rate in Europe is down to 0.34 per 90, which is much closer to Messi). Messi isn’t ahead of the others by a huge amount in assists per 90 mins in the full time period, but Messi *is* ahead in that data and if you looked at the larger sample size of league data as well, you’ll find that Messi is ahead of the others in assists per 90 mins by even more there (and just barely behind KDB). The overall data pretty clearly shows Messi is ahead of all the other players in assisting besides KDB (who is very similar—but is also in the running for greatest provider of the final ball in history—so being similar to him is about as good as it gets). It’s not debatable that Messi is ahead of all but KDB—the question is only the degree to which he’s ahead, which depends on the data set used but in some cases (i.e. more recent xAG, as well as league assists) is quite significant.

    And this isn’t even getting into the fact that not all assists are equal, and the types of assists Messi (and KDB) gets are, on average, more important/impactful to the play than those that these other players get (though Ronaldo’s very early career was more comparable in this regard in its own way). Anyone who watches these players knows that, and, notably, you yourself have readily admitted in the recent past that Messi is the best playmaker as a forward. You said that Benzema is an all-time great playmaker himself but readily admitted that Messi was better at it (saying Benzema was better than everyone besides Messi).

    ___________________________

    Note also: As a slight correction, Messi was not the designated dead ball specialist for a lot of earlier years, where Xavi was that person.


    You are just flailing, and cherry picking whatever info you can find that you think might in some small way support a ludicrous agenda. This has led to you apparently trying to suggest that Harry Kane’s dribbling is of similar impact to Lionel Messi’s! Utterly ridiculous. To address this nonsense, Messi also uses dribbling to progress the ball from the middle third of the pitch—which is also very valuable, and is, for instance, a major reason why Andres Iniesta is an all-time great. And, regardless, if you looked at league data, you’d find that Messi produces 1.15 dribbles that lead to a shot while Kane produces 0.41 (which is actually below Ronaldo at 0.46). The dribbles that lead to shots number for the CL is a low sample size of data, which is therefore subject to a good deal of random noise (like, for instance, the recipient of a pass after the dribble not managing to get the shot off, a couple minor passes or other actions being made after the dribble such that it’s not counted as a “shot-creating action,” etc.). Messi very clearly has a massive advantage in impact in this area, and it’s breathtaking that you’re trying to argue this at all.

    This is just silly. Messi is just orders of magnitude ahead of these players in these stats. It’s not in the same galaxy. His contribution to ball progression is utterly massive, and besides KDB these other players’ contributions are small. There is an enormous chasm of difference in impact in this regard.

    On the actual points you’re flailing around with here, as I’ve actually already pointed out in this thread, Ronaldo’s team has averaged over 50% possession in every single CL season since “progressive passing” stats came into being. Same with Benzema. And Barcelona has played more directly than before in these years. As a result, the possession stats aren’t that different. And, in any event, possession is only tangentially relevant to these stats, because you can only progress the ball so much. Possession-based systems involve more backwards and sideways passing, but not necessarily more progressive passing. Indeed, I’ve already clearly shown in this thread that Real Madrid’s overall team numbers in these stats have been quite comparable to Barcelona’s. I’ve also already shown in this thread that, within the context of his team, Messi has dominated these stats (virtually always being 1st or sometimes 2nd in his team in these stats, except progressive distance for obvious reasons). And that is clearly not the case with these other players. For instance, I showed already in this thread that Ronaldo is typically at or near the bottom of his team in these stats. So, within the context of his teams, Messi is pretty clearly the most important player with regards to progression in the attacking half, and these players besides KDB are generally amongst the least important ones. This is an enormous difference, and no amount of bleating about different team systems can possibly change that.

    And the idea that Messi doesn’t have equivalent contribution in this regard to the best playmakers is really baffling when we know that he very often leads his league in these stats (besides progressive distance for obvious reasons) and is always one of the top few. He absolutely contributes like an elite player in this regard. It isn’t debatable, and yet you keep trying to do so for reasons that are impossible to understand.

    You’ll find that in the years where this data comes from, Messi’s teams didn’t really have substantially more passes than these other players’ teams did. For instance, earlier in this thread, I already took one of the years in this data set (I believe it was 2017-2018) and showed that Real Madrid’s total number of passes per match was quite similar to Barcelona’s. I won’t keep spending time re-finding data I’ve already provided in this very thread, but go look up my post or look up the data yourself. Messi’s higher number of passes is objectively not simply a function of playing for a team with a massively higher number of passes.

    This is just completely hilarious, given that the per 90 minute numbers for touches in the defensive third are literally 2.99 touches, 2.38 touches, and 2.22 touches. Apparently having 0.15 more touches per 90 minutes in the defensive 3rd is “far more touches” hahahaha. Just ludicrous and shameless stuff.

    Unfortunately for you, all the progressive passing data shows the exact opposite of that, with Messi *clearly* being much more involved in offensive movements.

    Furthermore, heat map data (a lot of which I’ve already provided) refutes this idea that these other players spent “a significant amount of time . . . farther from goal than Messi.” As does the fact that Messi has way more touches in the middle third than these players—not “far more” in your sense of 0.15 more touches per 90 mins, but rather an *actually* far greater 16+ more touches per 90 mins. So this is just nonsense from you.

    The idea that Messi’s touches “are not being converted positively to goals at the rate you would expect” is a bit odd when the FBref shot-creation and goal-creation stats—which I already provided—go strongly in Messi’s favor.

    That’s a fair point, but it’s also true that he has amongst the least miscontrols (less than everyone but KDB), so the difference in those combined is smaller (and starts to get non-existent if you add loss of possession from being offside, though that’s a bit different, for lack of as much counterattack potential). This also just goes hand in hand with having more touches. Whoever has the ball is the only person at risk of being dispossessed, and so it’s no surprise for the person with the most touches to have the most dispossessions. I think you’ll find that his dispossessions + miscontrols per touch is actually below all but KDB. Of course, that’s not entirely fair, since it’s easier to keep the ball in deeper positions and Messi’s touches are, on average, in deeper positions than the others besides KDB. But it does contextualize this. In essence, Messi getting dispossessed a bit more is simply a relatively minor cost associated with the obviously much larger benefit of being more involved in midfield and in attacking-half ball progression.

    None of these players, besides to some extent KDB, provide much of any defensive impact. So we are comparing quite minimal impact across the board here, such that this area is virtually meaningless in a comparison of these players. And the fact is that on the stuff that actually matters the most in this arena (i.e. recovering the ball from opponents, and, most pertinently, recovering the ball high up the pitch), Messi is actually ahead of all these players besides KDB. He’s also 2nd in tackles in the defensive third too, suggesting these others aren’t exactly doing more meaningful defensive tracking back. But the impacts here are all quite tiny. If you want to try to say Messi is a less impactful player than these guys because of things like number of clearances or getting dribbled past a minuscule extra amount, then be my guest but that’s just manifestly a joke of an argument (and the latter is especially a joke when we realize that that actually just reflects him engaging defensively with dribblers more often—he both attempted to tackle dribblers and successfully did so more than anyone but KDB—so you’re basically just penalizing an indication of greater defensive effort). What is happening here is you have found FBref data and are manically trying to use whatever small thing you can find in it to denigrate Messi—no matter how manifestly silly and meaningless it is.

    Your insistence on saying Messi has “less participation in the build-up” phase despite knowing that Messi absolutely dwarfs the others in all ball progression stats is breathtaking.

    More generally, it is just mind-boggling that someone could look at the data you are looking at and conclude that Messi doesn’t look superior (and indeed conclude “quite the contrary”). But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, because you are the same person who (1) watched the World Cup and thought it made sense that Kylian Mbappe had more than twice as many progressive passes than Messi, even after being told that was incorrect; and (2) watched Messi and Zidane extensively and thought it made sense that Zidane dribbled people substantially more than Messi, even after being told that was incorrect. You appear to veer heavily into delusion, at least apparently when it pertains to Lionel Messi.

    You cannot possibly be serious. You acted utterly abusively after being corrected about something you were objectively incorrect about, and then refused to apologize for that and continued to be abusive in that refusal, and now *you* are suggesting there was something wrong with *my* behavior??? This is just completely pathological. You really need to take a step back and consider your own actions and whether maybe, just maybe, you might be in the wrong.

    But, given how shockingly unpleasant and toxic you have repeatedly proven yourself to be, if you wish to stop engaging with me, then that would make me quite happy, so I encourage you to do that and I will gladly do the same to you.
     
  22. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    #872 SayWhatIWant, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    The last time Messi scored in a Champions League away match beyond the round of 16 was the 2012-13 campaign against PSG when Beckham was still on the pitch. It's been 10 years so positively shocking stuff. Of course, he has not been as efficient in front of the net. If you are receiving more touches and taking more shots, but scoring at a similar rate as guys going constantly deep in the competition against tough opponents, it means it takes more actions for the same (actually inferior) result.
    We're told he is the best goalscorer, best playmaker, etc. rolled into one.
    But his goalscoring is not the best, and he assists at the same rate as Benzema and Cristiano in spite of having more touches in dangerous areas, a rate that is partly skewed by the fact he is not making late championship runs.
    That Messi is the best playmaking forward of the modern era is not a debatable question. But in possession heavy teams, a lot ball circulation is just that... ball circulation and does not lead to a shot at the end of the play. But this entire discussion stems from the notion that Messi provides performances equivalent to the best playmakers when he does not score. That is demonstrably wrong. What is also demonstrable in the CL data is he has a goalscoring rate equal to Benzema (for example), despite playing his whole career with a CL contender, and receiving more balls in dangerous areas, and taking more shots.
     
  23. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #873 lessthanjake, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
    Those extra touches are largely taken as part of build-up play, so they obviously have nothing to do with goalscoring. That’s the point! You’re trying to somehow twist his greater involvement in build-up play (during which goals are not being scored) as not only not being a positive (which it is, massively so) but actually as carrying some kind of negative implication regarding his goalscoring. It’s obviously silly. And the argument hilariously ignores the much more pertinent fact that Messi has fewer touches per 90 mins in the penalty area than any of them except KDB and yet scores more.

    The idea that he’s “not been as efficient in front of the net” is quite odd when he’s objectively the one that outdoes xG the most. He is the most effective finisher out of that group. It’s just objective fact, backed by a boatload of data which has been repeatedly presented to you. The fact that he takes more shots than most of them to get only slightly more goals than some of them (and a lot more than the others) despite outdoing xG by the most is because he takes more long shots (as evidenced by an average distance of shot that is notably higher than everyone’s there except KDB). Which of course is, in large part, reflective of the fact that he doesn’t play as a dedicated goalscorer, but rather as more of an AM that spends much less time in the box—a point I’ve been repeatedly making! In any event, if you want to try to penalize Messi for inefficient shot selection based on his having taken more long shots, then be my guest, but I don’t think you really believe that that’s a significant problem. Nor do I think you believe any of what you’re saying in this regard, since this logic of basically dogmatically evaluating goalscoring based on goals-per-shot would suggest that Ronaldo is somehow a notably lesser goalscorer than Benzema and a lesser scorer than Harry Kane (0.15 goals per shot for Kane vs. 0.14 goals per shot for Ronaldo)—things that are pretty obviously untrue. Messi has scored the most of the bunch, and has pretty obviously done so with the best finishing compared to xG. At best you can say that that superiority comes with the cost of some extra missed long shots (which isn’t even always a cost, since those shots can create chances off rebounds, create corners, etc.). This is manifestly not persuasive, and I don’t even think you believe your own argument.

    He does not “assist at the same rate as Benzema and Cristiano.” He assists more. And in the expected assist data we have for the last 5.5 years of CL play, he is *way* above them (despite that happening to not pan out to more assists). And he is above them in assist rate by an even greater margin in league play. Moreover, anyone who has watched these players knows that Messi’s assists are also plainly materially different on average in terms of their importance to the goal than any one of these players but KDB. The overall picture from the data and from watching the players at all is clearly someone who is in the KDB realm of final-ball providing, while the others are clearly not (though Benzema and Kane are definitely very good passers). You again trying to twist his greater involvement in build-up play (i.e. more touches) as somehow reflecting negatively on his assist-providing is once again manifestly silly and in bad faith.

    Most importantly, the idea that it is “demonstrably wrong” that “Messi provides performances equivalent to the best playmakers when he does not score” is baffling. We are talking about a player who: (1) regularly leads his leagues and his team in the key ball-progression passing stats; (2) is very obviously one of the greatest dribblers in the history of the sport; and (3) is by your own admission “the best playmaking forward of the modern era,” who gets an incredible number of assists off of beautiful final ball provision that is only rivaled these days by Kevin De Bruyne and perhaps Neymar. The idea that a player possessing all of those attributes cannot provide performances equivalent to the best playmakers when he doesn’t score is just obviously non-sensical.

    ____________________

    Finally, I will reiterate that if you wish to make good on your prior stated intention to stop engaging with me, that would make me quite happy and I’d gladly do the same.
     
  24. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    #874 SayWhatIWant, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2023
    In this thread:
    https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/d...-the-greatest-footballer-of-all-time.2114820/
    There is a lot that is discussed regarding the limitations of Messi's play.

    I picked out the career Champions League stats because it is the fairest way of putting elite players to the test as it represents the most competitive level of football (The WC might be tougher, but the quality of competition is on average greater in CL).
    When we look at Messi's performance in the CL, we find that he has been very disappointing for many years, littered with knock-outs in the round of 16.

    The question is why? How can the best goalscorer of all time according to some and the best playmaker of all time according to some rolled into one player face so many failures.
    The reality lies precisely in the fact that he does not operate on the pitch as an all-time great playmaker - in many facets of his game.

    As Barcelona's maestro's Iniesta and Xavi started getting phased out, Messi's role mutated and he had greater playmaking responsibilities - responsibilities he cannot complete due to his poor work rate, the staleness of his patterned play which is predictable by top level competition and that has led to a series of disappointments in the CL. He is also not simultaneously the greatest goalscorer as evidenced by the repeat roadblocks in CL - nobody who plays for the teams Messi played for can have claim to that title after going 10 years not scoring in away matches beyond the Round of 16. This is an extreme failure in the CL as away goals count for more - there is huge incentive to score in these situations for the away team, and one can only speculate to what extent the lack of away goals from their goalscorer hurt Barcelona. The strongest evidence that Messi does not operate as a dedicated playmaker is when he is most fitted in that role, his teams have failed again and again as it is a complete tactical failure.

    When we investigated the stats, we find that over the course of his long career, he scores at the same rate as Benzema and Lewandowski in the CL, despite a comparable amount of touches in the box and more shots taken. His career assist rate which is a huge dataset and evens out confounders is comparable to Benzema's in the CL.

    Players in less possession driven teams and counterattacking systems such as Ronaldo and Benzema have more touches in the defensive third, which reveals a greater propensity to contributing to the attacking transition - that initial pass is often critical as it comes after ball recovery and launches the whole attacking motion. Messi has less touches in this phase of the game, and without providing proportions, a lot of these touches came when collecting the ball from CBs when he dropped deep to evade markers, or to provide overload situations.

    What you get with Messi is clear: a forward with immense quality in his passing game - the best of any forward, who operates tactically best in a free role rather than shouldering the CBs as that would destroy his efficacy, the best forward at providing a final pass, but poor defensive work rate, and lots of turnovers from dispossessions and dribbling and what all this gets you is the same goal rate as other forwards, and an entirely comparable assist rate - except these forwards have for the last 10 years maintained these rates in deep runs within the competition - so the rates are therefore much more impressive.

    What that means is Messi has a different style to accommodate in your team, but is not more productive or a better forward in the CL.

    @lessthanjake I think you are under the mistaken idea that I am replying to you - I am not. I've already asked you to disengage from addressing me.
     
  25. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    This is a mess but just to point out clear double standards you have against Messi.. you probably wont respond because you cant.

    You completely dismiss Messi vast superiority as a progressive passer because he plays in a "possesion dominating" team (which isnt that much case after 2013 but whatever), but then completely ignore the same context youve brought up 2 sentences ago, when you talk about dispossesions saying Messi is by far the most dispossesed of them all.
     

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