oggmar
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Now remeber Villa took every possible penalty there was for Valencia add that into your equation and he's percentage will be alot higher(same with Ibra by the way).
10 - Lionel Messi - v1
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Now remeber Villa took every possible penalty there was for Valencia add that into your equation and he's percentage will be alot higher(same with Ibra by the way).
Barcilliant
Senior Member
Ibra likes to drop deep thats why it didnt work out with Messi. You need a forward like Eto or Falcao who is a pure number 9 for Messi to play the false nine behind the striker. For some reason the tactical brains at Barca dont realise that. Ibra was never a target man but a second striker who also drops deep and creates chances for others. Now he doesnt drop as deep as Messi but they never clicked to gether cause they were similar.
lessthanjake
New member
I did briefly mention that, and I know that's a big part of it. But we should also remember that Barcelona will create a ton more chances overall than these guys have ever had on their prior teams. Strikers tend to get many more goals when on better teams, all else being equal. So while they don't take penalties, and many chances are taken up by Messi, I don't think there should be as big of a drop off as there is (about 0.2 goal a game drop off for both Villa and Ibrahimovic).
Let me illustrate this with a comparison to Real Madrid. Ronaldo takes all the penalties there too and is a focal point of the attack.
In 6346 total minutes of play, Benzema and Higuain scored 58 goals last season. That's a goal every 109 minutes.
In 5275 total minutes of play, Alexis and Pedro scored 28 goals last season. That's a goal every 188 minutes.
In 7751 total minutes of play, Villa and Pedro scored 45 goals in 2010-2011. Thats a goal every 172 minutes.
In 7423 total minutes of play, Ibrahimovic and Pedro/Henry scored 48 goals in 2009-2010. That's a goal every 155 minutes.
This difference can't be explained by penalties or something like that since Ronaldo takes those. I don't even think it can be really explained by quality of the strikers since Ibrahimovic/Villa/Henry/Pedro are definitely as good as Benzema/Higuain in my mind. Furthermore, even Callejon got a goal every 105 minutes, and he's certainly not insanely good.
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lessthanjake
New member
I think that's a valid point. But wasn't it the point that Ibra could drop deep? Messi shifts between dropping deep to create and going forward to score. You don't want another player trying to fulfill the same role as Messi at any given time since it will crowd the space. So if you want another player playing in front of him, don't you want one who can drop deep when Messi goes forward and can go forward and score when Messi drops deep and creates? I feel like the real problem was that Ibra wasn't entirely willing to do this, whether it was out of a desire to always be the primary goalscorer, or laziness of not wanting to move around all the time, or just a lack of tactical understanding.
BarcaVillain
New member
If you don't think scoring 100 goals between the front three is good enough then you're mental. Yes Madrid got more with Ronaldo, Benzema and Higuain, but you have to hand it to them, they broke records doing that.
Once again, Messi was unplayable today. He scores a brilliant hat-trick and the people I speak to about it shrug their shoulders and just say "as usual". Tells you everything you need to know about the lad.
Once again, Messi was unplayable today. He scores a brilliant hat-trick and the people I speak to about it shrug their shoulders and just say "as usual". Tells you everything you need to know about the lad.
BarcaOG
Banned
brilliant analysis.
lessthanjake
New member
100 goals between the front three is REALLY good, but that's not the point. The point is that Messi's production increase when moving to the false nine role has been accompanied by a corresponding decrease in the production of the others in the front three with him. Messi got almost TWICE as many goals last season as he did in the 2008-2009 season when he played on the wing, but the main front three got 101 goals last year and 100 goals in 2008-2009. Is 100 goals for a front three really good? Yes. Has Messi's dramatically increased production actually made the offense of the team better? I think it's debatable.
I would say it has, but not by as much as you'd expect it to when someone adds 35 goals a year to their tally (from 38 to 73). Each year, Messi's goalscoring has gone up, but the production of the front three as a whole has stayed about equal. This tells me that his added goals are largely crowding out others' goals. Maybe that's not true; maybe Eto'o and Henry just were much more clinical than any front three has been since for Barca, and a more clinical group could score as much as they did on top of Messi's current goalscoring levels. I'm not sure, though.
While I definitely think Messi is better than Ronaldo, I think there IS something to be said for the fact that his historic goalscoring has occurred while still allowing other strikers around him to score a lot.
e28makaveli
New member
Messi takes risks more risk than any other player on this team hence is expected to give the ball away occassionally. The team should be prepared to cover for his mistakes.
e28makaveli
New member
Great post but if the forwards you mentioned converted more than half the chances they were provided, the situation will be different. For example, Pedro came in today and missed a sitter.
e28makaveli
New member
Great post but if our striker converted more than half the chances they were provided, it will be a different outlook. Like the sitter Pedro missed today.
Bilal Khan
Tito > Mou
I thank God before I go to sleep and after I wake up that I am living in Messi's era.
What a player, scores a fantastic hat-trick in a very tough game (including the winner) plus an assist.
and it's just in the routine.
Insane,unhuman, unbelievable!
What a player, scores a fantastic hat-trick in a very tough game (including the winner) plus an assist.
and it's just in the routine.
Insane,unhuman, unbelievable!
footyfan
Calma, calma
@lessthanjake: There's a very simple reason why the goal tallies of the front 3 have decreased. It's because teams defend better vs Barca (i.e park the bus). I've been recently watching match highlights from few 08/09 games. All the teams defended the way Depor did today in the beginning. They gave too much space and had a relatively high line yet they didnt press very well.
lessthanjake
New member
It may be true that our strikers are just getting less clinical each year. There is certainly an argument that Eto'o/Henry was clinical while Ibra/Pedro was just less good, Villa hit a run of awful form the next year, and that last year Pedro was having an off-year and Alexis is not really a striker.
However, these are really good strikers we're talking about. Sure they might have off-years, but chances are one of them would've had a really great year of goalscoring during a three year span, unless something else was going on.
In 2008-2009, Eto'o scored 32 goals and Henry got 26. Since then, no striker has gotten more than 23 goals for Barcelona. During the same period, Higuain got 29 in 2009-2010, Benzema got 26 in 2010-2011, and Higuain got 26 in 2011-2012 while Benzema got 32. It seems odd to me that Higuain and Benzema have each twice hit goalscoring levels in the last 3 years that Ibrahimovic/Villa/Henry/Pedro could not hit. They're not naturally better goalscorers IMO
I'll make the same point in a different way: the best goals/minute ratio for Barcelona strikers during the last three years was, curiously, Pedro in 2009-2010 (by a significant margin too). He got 23 goals in 2638 minutes that year. That's a goal every 115 minutes. Higuain got a goal every 105 minutes in 2009-2010, every 142 minutes in 2010-2011, and every 107 minutes in 2011-2012. Benzema got a goal every 198 minutes in 2009-2010, every 111 minutes in 2010-2011, and every 111 minutes in 2011-2012. Each player had an off-year, but it was the norm for Higuain and Benzema to perform better than the BEST a Barca forward has done in three years. For reference, Ibrahimovic scored every 142 minutes in 2010, Pedro scored every 165 minutes in 2011 and every 212 minutes in 2012, Villa scored every 179 minutes in 2011, Alexis scored every 168 minutes in 2012, and Henry scored every 451 minutes in 2010. Only the WORST season Higuain/Benzema has had (Benzema in 2010) was worse than the next best Barca season after Pedro 2010!
I don't think that this sort of thing can just be due to our strikers not being clinical year after year. Higuain and Benzema are NOT better goalscorers than these guys, but the stats make them look WAY better.
Something else to think about: Higuain and Benzema have averaged a goal scored every 118 minutes in the last three years. If the other main forwards (ie. not including people like Bojan, Jeffren, Tello, Cuenca etc) had scored at this rate, Barca would have scored 15 more goals in 2009-2010, 21 more goals in 2010-2011, and 17 more goals in 2011-2012. This is significant.
This COULD make sense. Here are the problems I have with that logic.
1) Part of them parking the bus more may have to do with the actual change in strategy that I am critiquing the effect of. The offense goes through Messi. When he is in the false nine role, he is in the center of the pitch. Defenses can key up on his attacks quite well by playing very narrow and behind the ball. It is harder to defend narrow and behind the ball when the ball is running through a player who is playing on the wings (Messi pre-2009-2010). Therefore, it was harder to effectively park the bus before. Similarly, teams are able park the bus so much against Barca because Barca's strategy is to play the slow possession game (giving you time to park the bus that you wouldn't have against a counterattacking team). Barcelona play the possession game even more than they did in 2008-2009. I think a good part of this is the fact that it is easier to play a possession game when your attacking focal point is in the center of the pitch. It's much harder to get the ball to a winger and a winger, by nature, has to be more direct than a player in the center. If your objective when in possession is to get it to a player who it is harder to get it to and who has to be more direct once he gets it, then you will retain less possession. In fact, this is the reason, I believe, that they moved Messi to the false nine role. It was easier to get him the ball; they can play less dangerously and keep more possession. The result, though, is also that teams have time to park the bus more. Maybe this makes it harder for the other forwards to score, but that's just my point; the false nine role limits other players.
2) Teams already parked the bus a lot against Barca in 2008-2009. Maybe not as much (for the reasons mentioned above), but that was the main logic behind getting Ibrahimovic after that season. They felt they needed a tall striker to counter bus parking.
3) Teams may have given more space before, but there ARE trade-offs to this. It is not unambiguously better or they would've done it all along. The more you press, the more space you leave behind yourself, for instance. The more you park the bus, the harder it is to score goals themselves, of course. This goes back to the first reason. Why did teams switch their strategy? Was it because they became more tactically aware of Barcelona? Maybe. But I think it has a lot to do with the false nine strategy leading to a less direct and less wide offense, making it easier to park the bus.
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Ohio Catalan
New member
You can say anything you want about any player in the world, but Leo is far and away the best footballer I've ever seen. I can't say he's the greatest of all time, because I missed out on Pele and Maradona (and a lot of other "greats") but this guy is just ridiculous. I've never seen any athlete dominate more than him, and I watched a lot of Jordan in his prime (And I watched every major Tiger ever won). We're the luckiest fan group I can imagine.
lessthanjake
New member
I think it bears emphasizing that the issue above COULD explain my whole point actually. It is easier to get Messi the ball when he is floating around in the center of the pitch than when he is on the wing. This allows him to get the ball more and be closer to the goal when he does. This is why his production has increased. However, this strategy also leads to high possession rates and less width. While I am not saying higher possession rates are bad overall, I believe it does allow teams to park the bus behind the ball more, and the width does the same. This bus parking limits our other strikers. Thus, the strategy helps Messi's production, and hurts the production of others. Combine this with the effect we get from pushing players onto the wings who would score more from the center, and it's logical to see the effect we see here.
This leads me to a comforting thought, though. Let's say the negative effect Messi has on other strikers IS due to more possession leading to more bus parking. This leads me to wonder why I am treating high possession so negatively. It's a good thing overall, particularly because it stops teams from scoring on us. The more we have the ball, the less they can score and certainly the more they park the bus in response, the less they can score. Under the logic above, then, we'd expect the negative effect on other strikers after 2008-2009 to also correspond to fewer goals conceded. We'd also expect Real Madrid to perform less well defensively all else equal (since they play more similarly to Barcelona in 2008-2009, with the focal point on the wing). We see both of these things. Barcelona let in 35 goals in La Liga in 2008-2009. They let in only 24 in 2009-2010, 21 in 2010-2011, and 29 in 2011-2012. Yes, they acquired Pique, and Abidal played really well in 2010-2011, but overall our defense has actually been an injury ravaged mess for much of the last few years, and yet fewer goals were conceded than before. I think this is because of the increased possession and more bus parking. Similarly, we can look at RM. They let in 32 goals last season despite having WAY better defenders, 33 the year before that, and 35 before that. They let in more goals but have better defenders. I think this clearly has to do with possession.
So here's what I think. I think moving Messi to the false nine role has had three effects:
1) It has made it easier to get Messi the ball and get it to him closer to goal. This has increased his production.
2) It has forced both non-Messi strikers away from the center instead of just one like before (Henry played on wing in 2008-2009 because of Eto'o. Only one of them could play in the center). This will limit production by those strikers.
3) It has made it easier for Barcelona to keep possession a lot and made us play more narrow. In turn, this makes it easier for teams to park the bus against us, which does a couple things:
a) It limits our production from other strikers because of the bus parking
b) The possession and bus parking has made us concede less goals.
It's unclear to me whether this is a worthy trade-off. I think it is. But at the very least, it makes me feel better about the comparison with Ronaldo. I was pointing out that Ronaldo playing on the wings allows RM to have other potent strikers. I think that's true. I also think that, on the flip-side, him playing on the wings forces them to play a more direct counter-attacking game, which makes them concede more goals.
This leads me to a comforting thought, though. Let's say the negative effect Messi has on other strikers IS due to more possession leading to more bus parking. This leads me to wonder why I am treating high possession so negatively. It's a good thing overall, particularly because it stops teams from scoring on us. The more we have the ball, the less they can score and certainly the more they park the bus in response, the less they can score. Under the logic above, then, we'd expect the negative effect on other strikers after 2008-2009 to also correspond to fewer goals conceded. We'd also expect Real Madrid to perform less well defensively all else equal (since they play more similarly to Barcelona in 2008-2009, with the focal point on the wing). We see both of these things. Barcelona let in 35 goals in La Liga in 2008-2009. They let in only 24 in 2009-2010, 21 in 2010-2011, and 29 in 2011-2012. Yes, they acquired Pique, and Abidal played really well in 2010-2011, but overall our defense has actually been an injury ravaged mess for much of the last few years, and yet fewer goals were conceded than before. I think this is because of the increased possession and more bus parking. Similarly, we can look at RM. They let in 32 goals last season despite having WAY better defenders, 33 the year before that, and 35 before that. They let in more goals but have better defenders. I think this clearly has to do with possession.
So here's what I think. I think moving Messi to the false nine role has had three effects:
1) It has made it easier to get Messi the ball and get it to him closer to goal. This has increased his production.
2) It has forced both non-Messi strikers away from the center instead of just one like before (Henry played on wing in 2008-2009 because of Eto'o. Only one of them could play in the center). This will limit production by those strikers.
3) It has made it easier for Barcelona to keep possession a lot and made us play more narrow. In turn, this makes it easier for teams to park the bus against us, which does a couple things:
a) It limits our production from other strikers because of the bus parking
b) The possession and bus parking has made us concede less goals.
It's unclear to me whether this is a worthy trade-off. I think it is. But at the very least, it makes me feel better about the comparison with Ronaldo. I was pointing out that Ronaldo playing on the wings allows RM to have other potent strikers. I think that's true. I also think that, on the flip-side, him playing on the wings forces them to play a more direct counter-attacking game, which makes them concede more goals.
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