Lionel Messi - v7

By the way,it's definitely NOT an accident that Leo has won 9 awards out of the last 11.But as @Batistuta9 said, WhoScored favors the most well-rounded player,that's why Leo keeps winning the "award",because he has been an elite finisher and an elite creator and an elite dribbler and an elite FK taker etc.

That said,the score is far from perfect.For example,this season they once again awarded Leo the award. Let's not kid ourselves, the team,the tactics,the whole club is in decline, but Messi himself had an atrocious season by his standards. I believe and hope that he will bounce back and I firmly believe that he is still one of the very best in the world, but he was not the best this season.

@bismp

Yes Messi had an atrocious season, but only by his standards. He is only the second player after Henry to have 20+ goals and assists in a league season. If any other player had those stats, there would be campaigns for the best player award.

He is single-handedly carrying this Barca team, just like Maradona did with Napoli. Yet one was regarded as the best at that time, while the other had a bad season.

bismp said:

By the way,it's definitely NOT an accident that Leo has won 9 awards out of the last 11.But as @Batistuta9 said, WhoScored favors the most well-rounded player,that's why Leo keeps winning the "award",because he has been an elite finisher and an elite creator and an elite dribbler and an elite FK taker etc.

That said,the score is far from perfect.For example,this season they once again awarded Leo the award. Let's not kid ourselves, the team,the tactics,the whole club is in decline, but Messi himself had an atrocious season by his standards. I believe and hope that he will bounce back and I firmly believe that he is still one of the very best in the world, but he was not the best this season.

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Messi being ranked best isn't awful tbh, top scorer and assist in top 2 league.
But a look at their team if the year:
https://www.whoscored.com/Articles/-DSmSsHzIEqO20b6_PCcAw/Show/Messi-the-star-while-just-one-Liverpool-player-makes-European-Team-of-the-Season#:~:text=Cristiano%20Ronaldo%20landed%20the%20player,from%20Real%20Madrid%20in%202018.

I doubt anyone would have 6 players from that team for their line up.

bismp said:

By the way,it's definitely NOT an accident that Leo has won 9 awards out of the last 11.But as @Batistuta9 said, WhoScored favors the most well-rounded player,that's why Leo keeps winning the "award",because he has been an elite finisher and an elite creator and an elite dribbler and an elite FK taker etc.

That said,the score is far from perfect.For example,this season they once again awarded Leo the award. Let's not kid ourselves, the team,the tactics,the whole club is in decline, but Messi himself had an atrocious season by his standards. I believe and hope that he will bounce back and I firmly believe that he is still one of the very best in the world, but he was not the best this season.

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Again, whoscored isnt reality.
There are so many examples of this, for one, i have seen Bale in the top 5 in la liga in seasons where he has been a non-factor, just to give an example.

Getting Messi right does not make whoscored a good measurement for actual performances in football, it just gives you part of the story.

Uhm, WhoScored is pure stats. I thought WhoScored was a non-discussion by now.
It's damn impressive that just by looking at the right stats you can filter some of the best performers of the year. But a whole lot of factors and players still miss out.

It's like Wikipedia, a good base to give a first look at a player. But in the end you need deeper observations, in this case: watching the games.

Messi is a victim to his own standards.

25+ goals and 25+ assists is a great season for most forwards.

However, Messi has had seasons like this:

11/12 - 73 goals, ~29 assists
14/15 - 58 goals, ~29 assists
12/13 - 60 goals, ~15 assists
10/11 - 53 goals, ~24 assists

Imagine a player giving you 80-100 G + A a season. In our heyday, we averaged from 150-200 goals a season. Meaning, Messi was pretty much half of the team's offensive output.

~50 G + A is going to start looking like a huge drop-off compared to that prime.

KingLeo10 said:

Messi is a victim to his own standards.

25+ goals and 25+ assists is a great season for most forwards.

However, Messi has had seasons like this:

11/12 - 73 goals, ~29 assists
14/15 - 58 goals, ~29 assists
12/13 - 60 goals, ~15 assists
10/11 - 53 goals, ~24 assists

Imagine a player giving you 80-100 G + A a season. In our heyday, we averaged from 150-200 goals a season. Meaning, Messi was pretty much half of the team's offensive output.

~50 G + A is going to start looking like a huge drop-off compared to that prime.

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If Messi played with prime Barca his numbers would be much higher too.

Whoscored is not fake, it just overvalues certain things like keypasses and dribbles.

btw those ratings are based on league only i think

And Messi being the best player in the top 5 league 9 times of the last 11 season is about right though i woiuld certainly swap 15-16 with 16-17.
in 15-16 Suarez probably outperforms him.

Looking purely at the CL his the best player 'only' 5 or 6 times out of 11 seasons


Sofascore is probably more accurate for their ratings, guess who is almost always rated the best player in the top 5 leagues there, Messi.

KingLeo10 said:

Messi is a victim to his own standards.

25+ goals and 25+ assists is a great season for most forwards.

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khaled_a_d said:

Messi being ranked best isn't awful tbh, top scorer and assist in top 2 league.

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Catta said:

@bismp

Yes Messi had an atrocious season, but only by his standards. He is only the second player after Henry to have 20+ goals and assists in a league season. If any other player had those stats, there would be campaigns for the best player award.

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I kinda disagree.

First of all,the drop-off compared to his standard has been huge.He used to score ~50 goals and give ~20 assists.This season so far(well it's almost over anyway) he has scored only ~25 goals and everyone is losing their minds for his assist record(it must be close to 30 assists in all competitions right now).The reason why everyone mentions his assists is because his goalscoring has taken a massive hit.

Especially considering a substantial amount of his goals came against low-tier teams and/or were penalties.

Furthermore,to add to this point,the stats may have been decent(Still well below his standards),but the eye-test is simply...not there. He underperformed against many teams,especially against top-tier teams. He actually had only a handful of good games against top teams this season.

Even then though, WhoScored tended to give him really good scores. Even at his worst nights,when the majority of BarcaForum called for his head, he usually got above 7/10.

So,in the end he gets a season-aggregate of 8.71(!!!)

Not only is this BY FAR the best in Europe(to put things in context,ONLY Lewandowski managed to get above 8/10,by getting 8.13)...

But also,according to WhoScored,Messi just had his best La Liga season since 2014/15 and 5th best in the last 11 years

bismp said:

By the way,it's definitely NOT an accident that Leo has won 9 awards out of the last 11.But as @Batistuta9 said, WhoScored favors the most well-rounded player,that's why Leo keeps winning the "award",because he has been an elite finisher and an elite creator and an elite dribbler and an elite FK taker etc.

That said,the score is far from perfect.For example,this season they once again awarded Leo the award. Let's not kid ourselves, the team,the tactics,the whole club is in decline, but Messi himself had an atrocious season by his standards. I believe and hope that he will bounce back and I firmly believe that he is still one of the very best in the world, but he was not the best this season.

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Certainly not his best, but far from 'atrocious'. The only player who clearly performed better then him was Lewandowski. He's in the mix with the likes of De bruyne for second place imo.
Setting the assistrecord is pretty special and whatever happens in the CL this will be the season with his highest assistrate (per game or per 90 min).

Mitchell1978 said:

Certainly not his best, but far from 'atrocious'. The only player who clearly performed better then him was Lewandowski. He's in the mix with the likes of De bruyne for second place imo.
Setting the assistrecord is pretty special and whatever happens in the CL this will be the season with his highest assistrate (per game or per 90 min).

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I said atrocious according to his GOAT standard,not in general.

I agree Lewa was probably the best in Europe this season and Messi is in the mix for the second place.Which in WhoScored terms should translate into a score og 7.75 to 8,not 8.71.

KingLeo10 said:

Messi is a victim to his own standards.

25+ goals and 25+ assists is a great season for most forwards.

However, Messi has had seasons like this:

11/12 - 73 goals, ~29 assists
14/15 - 58 goals, ~29 assists
12/13 - 60 goals, ~15 assists
10/11 - 53 goals, ~24 assists

Imagine a player giving you 80-100 G + A a season. In our heyday, we averaged from 150-200 goals a season. Meaning, Messi was pretty much half of the team's offensive output.

~50 G + A is going to start looking like a huge drop-off compared to that prime.

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Everything in this team is done to please Messi. It only works as long as we win titles. This season, Messi wasn't good enough for us to win on the back of Messi and Suarez pulling strings up front.

We struggled to win at any good team away and even drew and lost vs teams from the 2nd half of the table. That's a bad season no matter what individual stats say.

A goal at 0-0 or 1-1 away is worth three times more than 2 goals at 3-0 at home vs Eibar. Not all goals count the same, and the amount of important goals Messi scored in close games was low.

Messi stat-padded a lot this season. If you make a comparison between key goals of Benzema vs Messi, Benzema scored the more important goals in this season.

For Messi's standards, he was mediocre. For normal standards, he was good, not great. Certainly one of his weakest seasons.

The way we're formed as a team, playing down to the individuality of Messi and Suarez, giving them full power to run the offense as they see fit, to win the title with a good Madrid, they need to be better than this season.

serghei said:

For Messi's standards, he was mediocre. For normal standards, he was good, not great. Certainly one of his weakest seasons.

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Certainly, but this was also one of the poorest Barca teams in a while. Suarez, Busi, Raki all over the hill and starting every game. The whole quality of the team is blah.

serghei said:

Everything in this team is done to please Messi. It only works as long as we win titles. This season, Messi wasn't good enough for us to win on the back of Messi and Suarez pulling strings up front.

We struggled to win at any good team away and even drew and lost vs teams from the 2nd half of the table. That's a bad season no matter what individual stats say.

A goal at 0-0 or 1-1 away is worth three times more than 2 goals at 3-0 at home vs Eibar. Not all goals count the same, and the amount of important goals Messi scored in close games was low.

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Still, if we compare his output to a Lewandowski or a CR7 or even a Neymar, it's a similar output. Most of the offense runs through those players for their teams (I recently watched Thiago highlights and literally his game is built to service Lewa, as it should be). I'm not saying Messi's season was great by his standards but his season was not atrocious in comparison to other great players around whom their team's offense is structured.

Regarding, the last point. I mentioned G + A. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head but he did assist quite a bit in those more important games he didn't score in this season. You already know my stance on whether he should focus on scoring more or creating more. Maybe if he had focused more on scoring, he would have 40 goals this season and us maybe a title. But that's a different point compared to statistical output, which I was getting at here.