By BENJAMIN MORRIS

In their Group F World Cup match late last month, Argentina and Iran were still deadlocked after 90 minutes. With the game in stoppage time and the score tied at 0-0, Lionel Messi took the ball near the right corner of the penalty area, held it for a moment, then broke left, found his seam, took his strike and curled it in from 29 yards. What was going to be a draw was now a win, and Messi had put Argentina into the Round of 16.

It was the sort of play that inspired the phrase “Messi magic.” But for those who only watch soccer when the World Cup rolls around, this was probably only the second (or at most third) goal they’d seen from the little man they call La Pulga (“The Flea”). Despite having 407 career goals in club and international play (including a record 91 in 2012 alone) and a record four Ballon d’Or (World Player of the Year) awards, until this year’s tournament, Messi hadn’t scored in a World Cup match since 2006.

Since scoring an eerily familiar goal in the 2007 Copa Del Rey, Messi has constantly been compared to Argentine great and his former national team coach Diego Maradona. Despite his young age — he turned 27 on June 24 — Messi has taken substantial criticism in Argentina and elsewhere for failing to engineer a World Cup run like that of the man with the “Hand of God.”

To Argentina devotees, it probably doesn’t help that during Messi’s tenure at FC Barcelona the club team has won two FIFA Club World Cups to go with six La Liga and three UEFA (All-European) championships.

Perhaps this year will be different. Messi is finally having the kind of World Cup expected of him. He has scored in every game so far (four goals overall), including one on a beautiful free kick against Nigeria and the aforementioned game-winner against Iran. As of this writing, FiveThirtyEight gives Messi and his compatriots a 16 percent chance of winning the tournament — second only to host nation Brazil.

Even though national teams are patchwork and only play together for a handful of games each year, how Messi plays with Argentina relates to what is ultimately a fair criticism of his success: Most of it has come for FC Barcelona, a free-spending virtual all-star squad, packed with many of the world’s best players.

As the primary striker for such a juggernaut, it can be hard to detangle Messi’s goal-scoring prowess from Barcelona’s general offensive dominance. And the 2013-14 season hasn’t helped: Battling minor injuries and facing competition for touches from superstar arrival Neymar, Messi’s most recent season was slightly below par by his standards, yet Barca finished second in La Liga. (And in the seven games Messi missed, they went 6-1.) 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 d’Or.

I think this criticism is fair — and I found it intriguing enough to look into the matter myself. So I gathered and organized data, crunched it, re-crunched it, and gathered more data2 and crunched it some more.

By now I’ve studied nearly every aspect of Messi’s game, down to a touch-by-touch level: his shooting and scoring production; where he shoots from; how often he sets up his own shots; what kind of kicks he uses to make those shots; his ability to take on defenders; how accurate his passes are; the kind of passes he makes; how often he creates scoring chances; how often those chances lead to goals; even how his defensive playmaking compares to other high-volume shooters.

And that’s just the stuff that made it into this article. I arrived at a conclusion that I wasn’t really expecting or prepared for: Lionel Messi is impossible.

It’s not possible to shoot more efficiently from outside the penalty area than many players shoot inside it. It’s not possible to lead the world in weak-kick goals and long-range goals. It’s not possible to score on unassisted plays as well as the best players in the world score on assisted ones. It’s not possible to lead the world’s forwards both in taking on defenders and in dishing the ball to others. And it’s certainly not possible to do most of these things by insanely wide margins.

But Messi does all of this and more.

SCORING :

I think it’s fair to say that goals mean more in soccer than points do in most sports. And Messi scores a lot of them. Since the end of the 2010 World Cup, Messi has been responsible for 291 goals and assists in the 201 of his games in club and national team play tracked by the sports analytics company Opta. How does that compare with other soccer stars across top leagues around the world? (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.)

Coming in just behind Messi with 289 goals and assists since the 2010 World Cup is Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi’s rival from Real Madrid. When it comes to scoring, these two aren’t just on top of the pile, they’re hang-gliding somewhere way above it. Messi and Ronaldo have been compared to each other so often by sports media and fans alike that it almost feels trite to compare them again, but it can’t be helped. If we want to compare Messi to all players with a remotely similar volume of production, we’re left with Ronaldo.

Now let’s leave assists aside for a second (much more on them later), and concentrate on Messi’s shooting. Like Ronaldo, he has an enormous number of goals, but also takes an enormous number of shots. 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. But it turns out this isn’t really the case in soccer: More efficient shooters tend to take more shots. Despite this, Messi is still a trend-breaker:

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 he’s by far the most efficient of anyone with a similar shot volume. The highest-volume shooter who is more efficient is Mario Gomez, the former Bayern Munich striker, who takes about two-thirds as many shots as Messi.

But in soccer, unlike in basketball, shooting efficiency isn’t the the single most important stat. Since the value of a possession in soccer is much lower, so is the cost of missing a shot (and missed shots often have good outcomes as well). That said, quality shot opportunities in soccer are still a limited resource, so making the most of them is important.

To generalize a bit, some of the value a shooter provides comes from taking more and better shots (e.g. taking them closer to the goal, at a better angle, amid fewer defenders, etc.), and some of it comes from putting in those shots more often. For example, Messi’s typical regular (non-set piece) shot comes from 14.9 yards out, while Ronaldo’s average shot comes from 20.1 yards out. ESPN/TruMedia has a model for estimating the chances of a player making each shot he takes based on type and location (this metric is known as expected goals). The difference between a player’s actual goals and his expected goals is called “goals above average” (or GAA). Because Messi takes shots that are more likely to go in, his average attempt has an expectation of .182 goals, while the average Ronaldo shot has an expectation of .124 goals — so we would expect Messi’s shooting to be more efficient based on that alone. However, Messi has also exceeded that expectation by a greater amount than Ronaldo has. Messi scored .220 goals per shot attempt for .038 GAA per goal. Ronaldo scored .139 goals per attempt, so he had .015 GAA per goal.

Agreed Tuan.He got a big test against Atletico 3 times this season. Clasico will be important again, last year we had the same arguments before clasico, Barça went to Bernabeu with Pinto as GK and the pair Bartra/Piqué as CBs and the result was this.

Im not deniying Ronaldo's greatness, but i' ve watched both players thousand of times and Messi is just a better player. ( For me at least )

Ronaldo is a better striker at the moment, there is no point about it. But how many easy goals, easy assists he has ?
How many space his teammates creates for him ?

Anyway, i enjoy watching them both, ( Messi a little more ) anyway, Messi's injury has passed now, i believe he will be able to show why he is the best.

@tuan_jinn i disagree

Ronaldo is helping his team mates as well, he creates lots of chances, not as much as Messi though but his teammates fail to finish them

At the world cup Ronaldo didnt play completely bad, his teammates weren't playing with their hearts aside of Eder and Moutinho. with the addition of a knee injury he still tried his best.

This may or may not be off topic but the reason i like ronaldo is that he doesn't give up. with all the pressure from the media fans critics he has, he just brushes them off. Whenever he faces a team most of the fans go "Messi! Messi! messi!" just to piss him off, like the game vs Sweden and Ludjarocets, but Messi doesn't have that. In fact ronaldo is one of the most criticized player. I bet any of us can play a game well while all the audience start pissing you off and ONLY you, come on its difficult.

I respect messi but "some" of his fans dont acknowledge ronaldo at all, and same goes for ronaldo fans

messi has crazy vision but ronaldo has great vision as well, not crazy but great.

I swear i dont mind ronaldo celebrating like that he freakin deserves it, many coaches and players talk GODLY about messi and only few talk about ronaldo but not like messi

For me, since none of them is acknowledging ronaldo, why cant he do it himself.

*and no one says about his growth problem or whatever in fact his growth syndrome helped him too be the player he is today, if he was like ronaldo no way in hell could he have the same dribbling technique and pace with the ball.

• so stop bashing about ronaldo that messi is miles ahead of him, ronaldo is still on the cliff, pushing off is like digging your own grave.

cheers mates :)

I agree with Dyna, tiki should get his ''wrong'' information STRAIGHT ;)

Messi (y)

@tiki it isnt like messi shined against atletico, tbh they had the toughest defense

but i agree about the classico ronaldo wasnt at his best, however both messi and ronaldo arent 100% everyday,
but admit it who has the most pressure playing a match messi or ronaldo?

RONALDO

no matter what messi the media critics fans always have his back
for ronaldo, only his fans

like come on, ronaldo is playing awesome and yet messi is better? why, if ronaldo was in messi shoes and messi was in his this will be the result:

ronaldo is finally acting as a winger, but messi is better he has broken the record for the first player to score 15 goals in the first 8 rounds.

this is the reason ronaldo is acting towards himself from time to time, its like no matter how many people say messi is a god compared to ronaldo, ronaldo will still be fighting for his pride.

I think the first chart shows it best. Messi and Ronaldo are both out of this world.

Dynastian,
you should probably take a look at the fifth chart, which makes it more
clear. it's goals/attempts, not goals/goals like your own calculations
are.

According to whoscored.com both players have scored 41
goals from outside the box since 09/10. Attempts: Messi 423 (9,7%) ,
Ronaldo 804 (5.1%). So even though the numbers may be off here and there
and are not the same as in tiki's charts, I think it's safe to say that
Messi is more efficient even from outside the box.
I'm not saying he's a
better player though, they're both aliens.

source: check these links, click on "detailed", accumulation -> "total". then you can look at shots / goals / whatnot
http://www.whoscored.com/Players/5583/History/Cristiano-Ronaldo
http://www.whoscored.com/Players/11119/History/Lionel-Messi

This was very interesting read...

@tuan and tikitaka

even though I dont feel like there is any need to explain why Ronaldo is the best player in the world (a given atm), you can read what rayrex wrote.

@lilly if you have no point to share, or any explanation, stop commenting.
Let other who puts effort, even Ronaldo fans discuss, your comments are useless and im not keen on arguing with you.

@rayrex
Why do you think Ronaldo have more pressure ? He was backed by the best players arround him.
If Messi lose the ball, past years knowing who we had on the back and GK, it could be very dangerous while Ronaldo has Pepe/Varane/Ramos and Casillas to save the team.

Ronaldo seems running for stats, many of his goals are non important goals after a 3-0 result or in the last 10 minutes ( but credit for him for scoring them). Messi scored less, assisted more and actually won more games for his team. With all the Ronaldo goals Real Madrid are 4pts ahead of Barça.

Anyway im not saying one is good the other is not, if the question was who did good in 2014 : the response is quite simple : Ronaldo ( 17 goals cl ) despite Messi WC final.
If you ask me who is the best player, the response is quite simple too.

Gignac and Lacazette have scored more than Ibra, doesnt mean they are better than Zlatan ? No.

@tiki i dont know how but i think you misunderstood.

I'm not being biased but i think its commonly known that Ronaldo has lots of pressure on and off the pitch and YOU cant deny that.

Second of all I didnt mean that the one who scored the most is better, plus in fact Ibra isnt on form and he is injured so technically that doesnt count as an example but if u mean like Neymar scored more than Messi, so Neymar is better?
NO definitely not. Messi is playing better than neymar in everything, however Neymar has improved by a milestone

also the games that ronaldo didnt play was the matches madrid lost
real sociedadd vs madrid (Ronaldo was injured)

atletico vs madrid (ronaldo didnt play the whole game and was still in an injury)

and none of Ronaldos goals are "non-important" in fact ronaldo scored 95% of the matches FIRST.
So by your logic, most of messi's 91 goal in a single calender year was useless?
Then why make a record for it?
Why should there be a golden boot award?
Why is there a pichichi award?

So with all the respect, GOALS ARE IMPORTANT BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

@rayrex Every Football player has this sort of pressure, why should Ronaldo the only one suffering from it ?

And sure, individual trophies exist, but silverwares is what matters most and your ability to make your team win.

It feels better to have more Real Madrid supporters on this site. For years it was only me trying to defend Ronaldo from all his haters. Now it feels more like a little Real Madrid community. :)

Anyway, what we are doing is very usual in Clasico week, you can have some sympathy for the archrival and their players except in Clasico week :).

I like Messi but seriously 2013/2014/2015 is all Ronaldo i dont need anyone to tell me what is there to see. Messi is play for the "team" this year. 29 years old Ronaldo is making it tough out there for the young master.

Oh come on tiki you gotta admit , when it comes to ronaldo vs messi there are fans and haters for both of these players, where ronaldo has more haters than messi

Are there any players that have their names booed why playing a game. NO, only ronaldo

I'm not saying he is the Only player with pressure, but the player carrying the MOST pressure.

Plus most fans think inside the box but not outside,
For example bar a has better team chemistry than Madrid big time because almost all the players are familiar with each other and not anonymous to one another, aside of Suarez

In Madrid we lack this, that's why we mostly rely on individual talent which makes it tougher for us and the players to win as a team

Here take this as an example let's put messi in Madrid and ronaldo in barca
Will both of these aliens have the same stats of course not sure cause in barca almost anyone can assist without even knowing it, plus in Madrid everyone is scoring, before we should come up with stats we should first look at their teams playing system

@rayrex: uhmn, actually you are wrong, when someone says Messi is better, itś not neccessary he's Ronaldo's hater. so please stop with that.

I understand your point and I respect your point. So let me get this straight: They are both incredibly exceptional, and miles ahead away from the 3rd best in ALL AREAS (inlc. scoring, creating chances, key passes etc). But if we have to compare, especially when the argument is going NO WHERE because of personal opinion... then let's solve it by statistic... it doesnt need rocket science to see Messi is more creative, more vision, more as a playmaker. But this year Ronaldo has been miles a head for goal scoring... (Messi used to be better in the year he score 91 goals). So to me at least we have statistic to back me up. If you can find a better statistic that proves otherwise... I would love to discuss and see it.

@Dyn: I find it hard to believe you said that... there are more Ronaldo's fans in this site than Messi from my point of view and not only this site, the world out there, too. You dont have to defend for Ronaldo... and when you have to say ... "itś good to have more Real's fans here"... you just accidentally said that natural fans and Barca's fans are more likely to prefer Messi.

@Tuan_jinn

To me it seems that you haven't watched Ronaldo play this season, only judging him by goals. Myself and all the other Real supporters here are speaking of not just his goals, but his performances. He has performed better than Messi throughout the entire year, excluding the World Cup. But would you really compare these two from just a span of 7 international games? Of which Ronaldo only played 3? No, that's ludicrous. Over the season, Ronaldo has been better by far.

@Dyn: I have seen at least half of all his games so that's why I said he and Messi is above the rest by miles. And again, the stats @tiki_taka provide in this thread since a long time (2010 world cup). Which means the data is sufficient to actually mean something, I dont refer to this year in particular, the other thread I do.

My point is: normally you are very wise when it comes to arguments (especially these tough ones), but like this time... it's a bit strange dont you think. For example: you are kinda directing me to the international games only comparison... I would never do that...

Okey, For the sake of the argument, lets assume I use the world cup games to confront your opinion... then do you agree, my point of saying: Ronaldo cant have big influences as Messi does when the players around them are crappy! Ronaldo failed miserably from time to time while Messi has turned to from miserable to be a team saver.

Lol than don't take this personal but when I said a ronaldo hater I didn't mean you or tiki, I meant by other fans

Plus I know that messi is better as a team player than ronaldi because he adapted that form form barca, if u put any player in barca for a couple of seasons he can be an amazing playmaker

Plus I don't need the stats to back me up, cause I know that the areas u recalled is a fact that messi is miles better, but I'm staying is the heavy burden and pressure ronaldo carrys

What I'm saying is Ronaldo doesn't gain the praise that he deserve end of story

Plus what dyna meant is that there aren't much Madrid fans backing Real Madrid in these sort of situations

But I respect ur opinion as well and this conversation is definitely not gonna end cause each fan won't give up on his or preferred club/player

True...

But again, can you please tell me why you keep saying he carries such a burden? And what make you think Messi doesnt?

Ok, a better question: Ronaldo is surrounded by all TOP FORM players, on the raise (Bale, James, Isco, ex. Di Maria, Kroos, Modric). while Messi has been surrounded... by a lot of players on their way down (except Neymar and soon to be Suarez). When Xavi was on his top form... then Messi made the best out of it just like Ronaldo now... So, what burden are we talking about?????

Ronaldo doesnt gain the praise that he deserve? Isnt he the current Balon 'Or holder (even based on a never-before-extended voting period?), didn he had the kinda-strange MVP award, and how about the FIRST ONE EVER to have reach 100 mil. fans on facebook? And didnt all of us put him and Messi WAY WAY above the rest? Heś only less creative compare to Messi, he's still overall above the rest