messi average touches per game messi average touches per game

At the aggregate level, defenders will look to cut off the areas that are most dangerous relative to where the ball is. Imagine how good Peyton Manning would be if whomever he played for could spend three times as much as 90 percent of NFL teams. In contrast, Inter rarely ventured forward after the red card and completed just 11 passes into the attacking third in the second half, the second-fewest in a Serie A game this season. Kylian Mbappe-Lottin has received 4 yellow cards and 0 red cards. Lionel Messi averages 58 passes per match with a pass completion rate of 88%, and has 4 assists. Touchdowns per Game. About 12 percent of his shots have swerve on them (compared to 10 percent for all players); 31 percent of those swervy kicks score, for a huge .202 GAA (all players: 8 percent, .020 GAA). Between Messis shots taken and chances created, he is responsible for about 48 percent of Barcelonas regular (non-penalty, non-set play) shot attempts. Average goals: 0.73 per game Average participation in goals: 0.94 per game Penalty Goals: 143 scored (28 missed) 83.77% (16.23%) Number of Goals when he reached 900 games: 647 Number of goals when he reached 1000 games: 726 (Messi reached 726 goals with 903 games played 97 games less than CR7) Tournaments played / won: 85/34 (40%) Below is a list of All Players with the Most Touches per 90 Minutes in the Premier League in the 2020/2021 Season. Coming in just behind Messi with 289 goals and assists since the 2010 World Cup is Cristiano Ronaldo, Messis rival from Real Madrid. Lionel Messi hasn't received any bookings (yellow cards or red cards) during this Ligue 1 season. Lionel Messi has taken 112 penalty kicks so far in his career. Shots (SH) The most obvious one is to consider a players metrics per 90 minutes rather than their total actions. False nine Bernardo Silva had 86 touches. Another Iron Bowl clash between No. It also points to the main stylistic difference between Messi and Ronaldo: Ronaldo takes more mid-range shots but misses a lot of them; Messi tries to beat a lot more defenders, loses sometimes, and then makes up for it (and then some) by having better assisting and shooting opportunities as a result. Messi had his best passing day against Real Madrid in the league over that time span, completing 51 of 56 pass attempts (91.1 percent). And whats more, his passing profile is nothing like the other Barcelona forwards, who typically send 72 percent of their passes back or square. Here are the equivalent differences for all players since 2010 with more than 100 games played and four or more shots or assist chances per game: Of course, these are raw shooting percentages and dont account for the types of shots each player is taking or assisting, or the number of attempts. Why not try to get the touch on the soccer ball that Messi has. Ill discuss those separately. The PSG and Bayern forwards could not be separated in the creative standings as the club season reached its conclusion. Cristiano Ronaldo has since tied him with five. And then theres the bread and butter of aggressive passing: moving it toward the goal on the opponents side of the field. . Remainder of session based on possession game then a match. And among Messi's 843 touches . I didnt count missed tackles as either positive or negative, because they arent nearly as bad as a successful tackle is good. Lionel Messi scores an average of 0.61 goals for every 90 minutes that the player is on the pitch. Situation. For its data, AMK has picked the following 11 forwards from the league: While the Manchester United striker is often targeted for his poor touch, he's not the worst person on the chart. Christian McCaffrey (23) Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. He agreed to new terms as he committed himself to the Catalan club until 2012. In 47 UEFA matches since 2010, Barcelona has scored 104 goals, or 1.08 goals per game more than a Spanish team comprised of a similar offensive core and using the same tiki-taka playing style, minus Lionel Messi. As a fully fledged member of the no-touch All-Stars, one name near the top of the list aligns with Altmans example perfectly. By this point, it should be evident that Messi has at least a little bit of skill. Teams that defend more will tend to cover larger distances, while certain tactical styles expect more of their forwards Roberto Firmino of high-pressing Liverpool covered almost 7 miles per 90 minutes. FC Barcelona - This is how Leo Messi trains / As entrena Messi Watch on Assists Per Game (APG) The assists per game statistic shows, on average, how many assists a player creates during one game. One of the best assist makers in the world right now is Lionel Messi. He is the top scorer of all time in Spains La Liga, and this season, his performances have been characteristically devastating: Lionel Messis performance in the 2017-18 La Liga season, * Among attackers with minimum 850 minutes played. Of 8,335 players in our dataset who have taken at least one shot from outside the box, only 1,835 have scored from that distance at any point. Whether possession football much less the extreme form employed by Barca is even a good strategy at all is controversial. That World Cup team scored fewer goals per game than this years: only eight goals in seven games in 2010, while this years group-stage dropouts scored four goals in three. Sure its great if you can juggle the ball fifty times, but can you vary the height of the juggles, alternate juggles with both feet, juggle the ball out to the side and then back in front, can you manipulate the juggles rather than dance under the ball like youre a balancing act with an array of dishes destined to fall. And hell do it with grace, which you cant acquire, which you may have learned from a Seinfeld episode: You cant have a little grace. This attacking performance currently places him at 15th out of 408 for Ligue 1 Players who've played at least 3 matches.This player scored a total of 12 goals so far in the season in the league, which places him at 3rd in the PSG squad's Top Scorers list. Yoane Wissa (Brentford) - 27.6 touches per 90 9. If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback please don't hesitate to get in touch.Our content is not intended for an audience under 18 years of age. If we want to compare Messi to all players with a remotely similar volume of production, were left with Ronaldo. He shoots slightly below average on (a limited number of) headers (10 percent vs. 13 percent). 5 of the 12 goals were scored at home while he scored 7 goals at away games. Lionel Messi is a Forward who has appeared in 20 matches this season in Ligue 1, playing a total of 1762 minutes. In attacking territory, no one attacks as often as Messi does, and no one has more success doing so. The three of them, in Barcelonas devastating 4-3-3, would spread out wide across the pitch, forcing defenders to follow them. On the other side, the Sounders lead the league in completion percentage on open-play crosses at 26.3 percent and are tied for the most scoring chances created from them with 65. Bony 8'722 kilometres is the Ivorian City's average per game. Plus, hes rarely if ever ruffled despite the increased focus and punishment hes taken at times. EPL. Of the 65 shots, 39 shots were on target and the other 26 shots were off target. If we break this down using shot-location data, its clear that Messi is highly efficient across a wide range of distances. Born in 1987, Lionel Messi is regarded as one of the greatest players of the modern era. For example, if the player scored .02 goals above expectation per shot attempt, and the rest of his team scored -.01 goals less than expectation, that players value-added would be +.03 goals per shot (the value above replacement for that player on that team). It stems from a formula that takes into account 2-point field goals, 3-point field goals and free throws. Much in the same way that John Muller adjusted each players metric in The Athletics player roles analysis, we can look at the share of a players actions relative to the whole team when they are on the field. For this purpose, I created a stat called possessions used. Its a little bit analogous to usage rate in basketball, and incorporates the number of touches in which a player: In other words, its a stat meant to reflect anything that ends a teams possession, whether that outcome is positive or negative. David Luiz Brazilian footballer Luiz is an important footballer for PSG. Of these, Messi Cuccittini scored 87 pens while missing 25. Follow FootyStats on the following channels to make sure you never miss a stat, pick or new feature. 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One measure of the quality of a group of passes is how many are completed successfully, but it also matters what happens when those passes get where theyre going. This is how Leo Messi trains. In the video below he suckers in Evra when the ball is played into him. To look at Messis defensive skill, I combined successful tackles,16 interceptions and blocked shots, then adjusted for number of opponent possessions (as I did with offense above). He has a league-best nine goals on headers. Lionel Messi's contract drama ended with the Barcelona star sealing the deal as soccer's second $1 billion earner, but Kylian Mbappe, a 21-year-old Frenchman, is poised to steal the show. taking them closer to the goal, at a better angle, amid fewer defenders, etc. From the above, you might think Messi is a selfish player. Evra did an admirable job of limiting Messis inroads into the attack, but he couldnt blunt him or deter him from making Evras over zealousness theatre for the fans and then a YouTube clip. Midfielders such as Iker Muniain (Athletic Bilbao), Amadou Haidara (RB Leipzig) and John McGinn (Aston Villa) rise through the ranks, highlighting their greater tendency to play the ball forward when given equal opportunity. Of the 866 players who qualified for that plot by playing in 50-plus games and averaging at least one shot attempt per game Messi is the ninth-most efficient shooter overall (Ronaldo is 173rd), and hes by far the most efficient of anyone with a similar shot volume. During game, 60 minutes. For this plot, Ive excluded penalty shots, shootout shots and direct free kicks. Altman explains how to find more signal among the noise. Behind him sat players from similarly high-possession sides, with Mohamed Salah (Liverpool), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (AC Milan), Kylian Mbappe (PSG) and Karim Benzema (Real Madrid) among the prolific cohort. Its not possible to shoot more efficiently from outside the penalty area than many players shoot inside it. What was going to be a draw was now a win, and Messi had put Argentina into the Round of 16. Perhaps this year will be different. . ESPN gives you the data. Since both are the primary PK-takers for both their club and national teams, this difference if it held up in the long run would be worth about three-quarters of a goal per year. Now lets plot that added value against each players13 total offensive participation (the percentage of team shots hes involved with): Finally, after however many charts, we see a diminishing return. If this were basketball, we might expect a negative (or at least decelerating) relationship between shot volume and shot efficiency the more shots a player takes the less efficient he is.3 But it turns out this isnt really the case in soccer: More efficient shooters tend to take more shots. The truth is, who doesnt want control like Messi and to know how to develop that ball tethered to the foot control that he possesses? The people to whom hes dished assists and chances have scored on 18.1 percent of their shots. While I havent studied this aspect of his game in depth, soccer experts in the FiveThirtyEight office theorize that it has something to do with his stature. Do you like to eat green eggs and ham while youre juggle? There are a few lines where Messis stats are considerably worse than his peers (meaning Ronaldos): He doesnt get a lot of clearances although this is partly style, as Messi is more willing to pass out of defensive territory (or even take on defenders). Who voted for Messi, Mbappe, Putellas in The Best FIFA Awards? He averaged one touchdown every 10 touches, significantly more than one touchdown per game, and his 9.8 yards per . The most popular explanation has been that Messi walks to conserve his energy for critical moments, like a perfectly efficient machine. Risking a turnover to increase your chances of scoring a goal even by a small amount can be worth it. Messi had his best passing day against Real Madrid in the league over that time span, completing 51 of 56 pass attempts (91.1 percent). Now lets leave assists aside for a second (much more on them later), and concentrate on Messis shooting. For example, Ronaldos success rate of 60 percent beats Messis 54 percent (with a slightly lower completion percentage), but Ronaldo has only 35 successful long ball passes to Messis 81. Yes, the 25-year-old Spurs striker only averages 38 touches per match, with him only getting 12 successful touches for every unsuccessful one. The biggest obstacle to evaluating Messis passing ability is accounting for the fact that he plays for the most pass-happy team in the world. Yeah, its like a Dr. Seuss story, where instead of green eggs and ham its all about juggling the soccer ball while under pressure. This also somewhat neutralizes any statistical advantage for players who play for pass-happy teams like Barcelona. He still scored 41 goals, but that total was less than the 60 he scored the year before, and fewer than the 51 that rival Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid scored en route to capturing the Ballon dOr. (Thats 1.2 goals per game overall.) Hes not a player who complains or acts like a spoiled child at times, a la Cristiano. Ronaldo isn't top 3, Pele, Messi and Maradona, he is way less influential in a game, just look at their average touches per game. And 22 games is a tiny sample. Rosales has assisted on six of Johnsons headed goals, including four assists from open-play crosses and two from corner kicks. On direct free kicks (like the one he scored on against Nigeria), Messi has scored about 8 percent of the time (compared to all players 5 percent), with .021 GAA per shot (Ronaldo has scored on 7 percent with an identical .021 GAA). Will Democrats Rally Behind President Biden In 2024? He has an average GAA of .026 on those kicks (all players: 5 percent shooting on weak kicks with -.055 GAA). Using data as a filter, is it more impressive for a striker to score 10 goals for a team battling relegation than a striker scoring 25 goals for the inevitable title winners? The chart shows attempted through-balls and through-ball assists, not attempted and successful assists. The crux of my research is based on play-by-play data (plus x-y coordinates) from ESPNs partnership with the sports data companies Opta and TruMedia. Zachary Singer and Jason York contributed to this post, Messi, Ronaldo make limited touches count, Anthony Davis fills up stat sheet against Suns, Coming off 2017 and looking ahead, it's a great time to be a Georgia fan, Lou Williams has been Stephen Curry-like of late for Clippers, Wizards have a fivesome that ranks among the best in the game, It's a great time to be the Rockets' defense, Seahawks QB Russell Wilson in MVP-caliber form. (The Opta data set includes 16,574 players and 24,904 games in both league and international play since the end of the 2010 World Cup.). Put simply, a player can only perform a defensive action (e.g. tackles, blocks, interceptions) when their team doesnothave the ball, adjust defensive statistics by counting the number of times they make those actions for every 1,000 opponent touches, Adjusting data to per 100 touches reveals Messis enduring class (Photo: Catherine Steenkeste/Getty Images), shoot frequently with the touches they have, Lionel Messi showing just how often he still looks to advance the ball towards the opponents goal, John Muller adjusted each players metric in, There is no right or wrong number of touches that a forward should have. Were used to seeing him provide dazzling passes, incisive shots and glamorous dribbles, but we shouldnt be afraid to keep our eyes on him even when the ball is elsewhere, and especially if he is moving slowly. Considering he's also two years younger, he has a better chance of. With Real Madrid, Ronaldo has lost all three of his encounters with Messi. All rights reserved. 6 Auburn, Kirk Cousins thriving even when Redskins are not, Lonzo Ball, De'Aaron Fox meet for first time in NBA as Lakers visit Kings. Watch how Messi passively gains space on the right wing for Barcelona during an attack, with a dual view showing how Bornn and Fernandez dynamically value space behind the Villarreal defenders: Applying the models to data from that La Liga match between Barcelona and Villarreal in January 2017, Bornn and Fernandez found that Barcelonas most important principle space gainers were Sergio Busquets, Andres Iniesta and Messi. 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. After an El Clasico match between Barcelona and Real Madrid in December 2017, there was widespread coverage of the fact that Messi walked 83 percent of the roughly 5 miles he covered that game. Ronaldo isn't top 3, Pele, Messi and Maradona, he is way less influential in a game, just look at their average touches per game. Across Europes top five leagues last season, mapping players with the top 20 shots per 90 will pull up many of the usual suspects. When I say a bad performance of Messi, that doesn't mean he's literally done not. Iniesta and Busquets were passive just 43 percent and 52 percent of the time they held valuable positions. This thought experiment is not a new consideration within football analytics. Overall touches - 307. But dont sleep on his right foot: When he uses it, he scores 23 percent of the time. Moreover, on unassisted shots he shoots nearly 10 percent and .044 GAA better than the next best player (Sergio Aguero for Manchester City) does, despite taking the fourth-most such shots of the 28 players in the group. Barcelona (17). Despite him only running an average of 8'715 kilometres per game. That goal was quintessential Messi: He got the ball on the right side of the field, held it for a few seconds, broke to the middle and in heavy traffic swerved it in on off his left foot. The 21st of those outside-the-penalty-area goals was Messis extra-time winner against Iran, which came from 29 yards out (33 yards to where it went in). But take a look at some of his early feats. Lionel Messi (26) Cristiano Ronaldos 31 touches were his fewest in a La Liga game since he had 32 against Barcelona on April 21. Only 5 percent of his kicks are strong ones (compared to 8 percent for all players), but those kicks score 36 percent of the time, and have .251 GAA each! CORRECTION (July 7, 7:29 a.m.): An earlier version of this article also incorrectly said that Ronaldo had 41 successful long ball passes when in fact he had 35. To make sure you never miss out on your favourite NEW stories, we're happy to send you some reminders, Click 'OK' then 'Allow' to enable notifications, .css-1diosym{color:black;}@media (prefers-color-scheme:dark){.css-1diosym{color:#fff;}}Published16:29,11 December 2018 GMT@media (prefers-color-scheme:dark){.css-jirzs7{color:#72B97D;}}| Last updated16:33,11 December 2018 GMT. 2023 ABC News Internet Ventures. I think this criticism is fair and I found it intriguing enough to look into the matter myself. Lionel Messi has won 44 titles so far in their career. Argentina (25) Yet when they did have it, they were incredibly efficient. Perhaps thats an unfair comparison to make but its consistent with the theory that Barcelonas play keep away until lightning strikes offense really only works when it has Messi as its striker. Despite this, Messi is still a trend-breaker:4. Events that simply prolong the possession (taking on a defender and succeeding, or passing the ball to another teammate who does not take a shot) arent factored in. Online Grocery Shopping within Lagos with same day delivery. per 90 minutes, per 100 touches, or per minute in possession cannot be underestimated as Dan Altman, creator of smarterscout, highlights. Once again, that makes him a crazy outlier: No one else (aside from, yes, Ronaldo) even comes close to his combination of goals scored versus goals dished. Best Goal per Game Ratio in the 21st Century 1 Lionel Messi - 0.87 goals per game (630 goals in 726 games) Top 5 leagues - all competitions 50/50 50 Michael Owen - 0.44 goals per game (167 goals in 379 games) 1/50 Altogether 28 players managed to break through the 0.5 goals per game ratio. The 33-year-old has a lifelong sponsorship deal with Adidas. More than 60,000 fans are expected to witness the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers renew their Cascadia Cup rivalry tonight on ESPN.