Statistical data analysis reveals what is great for the world's best players Lionel Messi

Speaking of Mr. Nate Silver,Presidential election victory or defeat in all 50 statesA statistical tool for predicting the results of baseball playersPECOTAIt is a genius data analyst known as a person who developed. A news site that Mr. Nate Silver launched newly, analyzing every phenomenon using statisticsFiveThirtyEightI will serve as a sports related data analyst and writer hereBenjamin MorrisHad analyzed various data about Lionel Messi who is currently considered the number one football player in the world, Messi players are exactly miracle players who have compatibilized almost impossible elements in the usual way It turned out that it was.

Lionel Messi Is Impossible | FiveThirtyEight
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossible/


Messi is a football club member FC Barcelona and Argentina national team that belongs to when he became a professional player, he has played 515 matches and has decided 396 goals and decides the number 1 player in the worldBaron d'Or(From 2010 onFIFA Ballon d'Or), Four times in a row, and currently being held2014 FIFA World CupHowever, we have brought the Argentina national team to the final round of the tournament by striking the goal in all three qualifying games.

Analysis of FiveThirtyEightAccording to Argentina at the end of the group stage the probability of winning the World Cup is 16%, and this value is second only to the host country's Brazil delegate. And now, the first round of the finals tournament has ended, the Argentina national championship probability has increased to 20%.


Since the football's national team gathers several times a year and plays together only, the sense of collective gathering becomes stronger than the club team that continues to play with the same athletes throughout the year. Therefore it is natural that the national team and the club team can not show similar performance, but Messi says "FC Barcelona's team mate is top notch so it can be used only for that," Messi In the 2013/2014 season, the club team could not win the title because of the center tactics as "Messi system", the number of points scored lower than the previous season, rival Cristiano Ronaldo (C · Ronaldo) Criticism was getting bigger because it was exceeded by the number of points in the season and missed the award from Baron Dole.


Benjamin of a sports data analyst, who has collected all the data on such Messi and analyzed them. HeOptaWe looked at all the data on Messi and other soccer players of 16,574 for football from the data of 22,004 games from the 2010 World Cup after World Cup offering. As a result, Messi is compatible with elements that are impossible usually, for example, the shot success rate is high even from inside or outside the penalty area, and the world top with both a goal with a weak kick and a long shot He reigned to the level, and while determining many goals with assist from other players, he found out that he was the world leader in the number of goals and the shoot success rate by himself, and it was exactly all the players.

◆ Scoring
Since the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Messi has decided 201 points with 291 points in the official game. The graph below shows graphs of the goal number (vertical axis) and assist number (horizontal axis) of 16,574 players, analyzing data of 229,04 games played during the same period, with Messi and rivals C and Ronaldo have achieved outstanding results.


Since scoring is harder to score than sports such as basketball and baseball, it is a very important point that shoot success rate is high. In the graph below, the vertical axis shows the probability that the shoot will score (that is, the shoot success rate), and the horizontal axis shows how many kicks a shot is kicked out on average for one game and participates in more than 50 games, and one game average 1 It shows the data of 866 athletes who kick over more than one shot. In this, Messi has a high shot success rate at the 9th, and you can see that it is kicking overwhelmingly effective shoots compared with athletes who have scored other large amounts. In addition, Mario Gomez was the only one who scored a large amount but the shot success rate was higher than Messi.


To make a shot succeed, various factors are involved, such as the angle at which the shoot is kicked, the distance from the goal, whether or not there is an opponent in front of the eyes. Therefore, calculate "goals above average (GAA)" representing the difference between the "number actually scored" and "the scene that the athlete could score", and calculate the shoot count · the expected shoot success rate · GAA The table below is arranged together. In this table, 20 players with a large number of shoots are arranged in the game after 2010, and the larger the numerical value of GAA is, the more "the shoot chances are not wasted", which means that Messi's GAA is high in dunts, You can see that you are not wasting the shot chances.


Below is a list of shoot success rates for each shoot area of ​​all the players' average, Messi and C · Ronaldo. If you look at this it's obvious how Messi can aim the shot from a wide range and high shoot success rate.


The graph below shows the number of points scored from outside the penalty area as ordinate and the number of shoots as abscissa. According to the graph, Messi's number of shots from outside the penalty area is 173, the number of goals is 21, which shows that both the number of shots and the number of points are the world's top level. In contrast to C · Ronaldo, although the number of shoots is about twice that of Messi from outside the penalty area, the score is less than Messi and the shoot success rate is considerably lower than Messi.


Messi's goal for the World Cup Group League / Iran game is just about 29 yards (26.5 meters) from the goal with a shot from outside the penalty area. Surely when I look at the goal scene, it seems like "I'm deciding a good goal from this position ... ...."

Gol de Messi a Iran (relato de Alejandro Fantino) - YouTube


◆ Shoot by yourself
In football there are two scenes that take a pass from teammate and decide a shot and a scene that carries a ball by himself and decides shot by myself. Messi sometimes is criticized as "play is too selfish", but 44% of the whole shoot is taken down to individual shoot, which is lower than 46% of all players average. However, when Messi brought it to the shoot by himself, the shot success rate is 23%, it is a probability that it is considerably higher than 5% of all the player's average, and since it is possible to see the scene which often determines the goal by on his own , It may be easy to be misunderstood as "selfish".

In the graph below, the shoot success rate with no assistance on the vertical axis and the shot success rate with the assistance with the horizontal axis shows the shoot success rate, and the player who is above the red line has a higher success rate on its own For athletes under the red line, shots from assist will be more successful players.


Furthermore, what mesh Kick is kicking with which foot when shooting is as follows.

· Shoot with left foot with a 78% chance. Shoot success rate is 23%
· The shoot success rate on the right foot is also 23%
· The shooting success rate by heading is 10 to 13%
· 8% of the shoots were "weak kick" (average of 6% of all players), shoot success rate was 27%, GAA was .026 (average of all players - 0.055)
· 5% of the shoots are "strong kicks" (8% average for all players), shoot success rate is 36%, GAA is .251 (average of all players .051)
· Shoot success rate is 31% (all players average 8%) with 12% of the shoots placing a curve (average of all players is 10%), GAA is .202 (all players average .020)
· Penalty kick (PK) success rate is 86% (all players average 77%)
· Direct success rate of free kick is 8% (average of all players is 5%), GAA is .021

The direct free kick has also decided in the World Cup match of Nigeria in 2014 World Cup, memorable new place.

Messi Amazing Free kick GOAL Vs Nigeria 2-1 HD - YouTube


In addition, C · Ronaldo's PK success rate is 93%, so this point is better than Messi.

In order to succeed shoot by oneself, there are many cases where it is necessary to make a one-on-one match with the opponent's defender. The graph below shows the probability of winning with one player's opponent in one match and winning on the vertical axis, and the number of times of winning a one-on-one match on the horizontal axis. Messi dribbled and the number of times to compete against opponent is much more than the others, and the winning percentage is more than 50% exceeding the ordinary value, and "This graph shows Messi's technique and play style It's the best representation, "Benjamin says.


Only Uruguay's representative Luis Suarez will challenge the game against opponent as much as Messi. C · Ronaldo is a challenge less than 5 times per game on average, and its winning percentage is about 40%, so Benjamin is analyzing that this difference is a big difference between the two. Although Messi's shot success rate is higher than C · Ronaldo, this is related to the fact that the probability that C · Ronaldo loses one to one more than Messi is also somewhat related.

◆ Path and Assist
Because Messi's style that brings you to the shoot by yourself often shows up numerically, I thought "Messi is a selfish player, after all" and the data proved that the shoot was preeminently good, "the pass is mediocre I think that it is level. However, Messi easily goes through such an imagination easily.

There are no players who can expect so much for each match goal and assistance except Messi and C · Ronaldo. In the following graph, the assist number for each game is plotted on the vertical axis and the goal number is on the horizontal axis. According to this, Messi not only holds the largest number of points but also the assist number is German national mest · Ezil is the second best after Frank Ribéry of the French national team.


However, FC Barcelona is known as an excellent team of the world's most pass-work, and there may be people who suspect that "Because it is within this team, is it only with a large number of assistants?" The table below shows the number of passes, pass success rate, vertical pass rate, vertical pass success rate of the players playing (or doing) in the same forward position as Messi in FC Barcelona.


Although the vertical pass increases the probability of being intercepted by the opponent, it is necessary to carry the ball at once in the direction of the other goal and make a chance. Compared with the players in the same position as the same team, Messi is a lot of vertical pass rate and its success rate is also very high, but it is very much compared with the players of other teams, There are no players whose number of vertical passes is larger than Messi, after which he will be followed by Rome's Francesco Totti (2200) and Manchester United's Wayne Rooney (1,800).

In the graph below, the abscissa represents the path success rate, and the size of the circle represents the number of long pass. Messi said that the success rate of long pass is higher (54%) than any forward kicked the same number of long passes. C · Ronaldo has a long pass success rate of 60% higher than Messi, but the number of long passes is 41 and it is not far from 81 Messi's.


Furthermore, looking at the following graph with the number of attempts to exchange paths as the abscissa and the number of transit points as the pass exchange as ordinate, Messi participates in a lot of path exchanges more than other forwarding You see that there is.


In this graph, the vertical axis shows the goal number, while the horizontal axis shows the number of goals during one gameHalfway LineFromAttacking ThirdThe number of vertical paths to put in the area up to. Most of these passes are such paths as assist and attempted attemps, and Messi who has more longitudinal passages in the opponent than other forwards is likely to produce more opportunities I will.


◆ Ball touch
In order to find out how Messi has a big impact on the team, Mr. Benjamin is comparing Mess Messp FC Barcelona and Football Spain national without Messi. Why compare the two teams is that both teams have the characteristic of proceeding with a fine pass work and the Spain representative is playing a lot of FC Barcelona players.

In 2010, the Spain national team won the World Cup, and in the 2014 World Cup it was decided that the group league was eliminated earliest among all the teams. Such Spain national team won the seven games in seven games in the 2010 World Cup and four points in three games in the 2014 World Cup who did not qualify, which means that they have decided an average of 1.2 goals per game I will.

On the other hand, FC Barcelona's 2010/2011 season to the 2013/2014 season in the UEFA Champions League, the highest level game against the football club team, had an average score of 2.2 goals per game in 47 games with 104 goals, Messi I am deciding far more points than the Spain representatives who do not have them.

Comparing the national team and the club team may not be a bit equally, but the play between Spain and FC Barcelona is very similar, the big difference is just whether there is Messi in the forward. In fact, 48% of the shoot scenes excluding FC Barcelona's PK and set play were born of Messi's shot or passed on to his side, adding the number of points Messi's score and the number scored from Messi's assist, It will account for about 60% of the goal of FC Barcelona. Messi's success rate at Messi's FC Barcelona was 22.1%, and the shoot success rate of a teammate from Messi's assist was 18.1% (shoot success rate other than Messi's assist was 12.5%) and FC Barcelona alone Also, you can see that there is a big difference depending on whether there are Messi or not.

The graph below shows the effect of the football player who participated in more than 100 games on the shoot success rate and the assist success rate of the club team to which it belongs. For example, in the case of C · Ronaldo, you can see that the shoot success rate increases by 0.6% and the assist success rate increases by 2% when you participate.


Furthermore, the figure below shows how much players are adding added value to team attacks, and the players above the black line in the middle of the chart are given a value added to the team.


It is the graph below that gathers the good actions (goal and assist) related to the ball holding of the team and bad action (mistake and return pass) and arranges the players who perform these actions (horizontal axis) more than 15 times per game . The vertical axis is the ratio of good action.


And finally about Messi 's defense. Messi is a very small football player with a height of 169 cm, but there is no problem with the defense even compared to a big forward. I made a graph with vertical axis showing the play on the defense such as tackle for taking the ball, intercepting the pass, shoot block on the vertical axis, offensive play such as the goal on the horizontal axis, and playing about the defense is small compared to other big forwards There was nothing to say.


However, when compared with FC Barcelona's teammate's number, the number of playings on Messi's defense was quite small, and other disadvantages such as "I will not go for a bid for a half-ball highball" were also found.

The conclusion
Benjamin says that everything about Messi was investigated, "With the 2014 FIFA World Cup now, Messe's play" Game of play at FC Barcelona and play at Argentina national team "almost disappeared" And that. However, Messi's GAA at FC Barcelona is 0.262, whereas Argentina's representative is a little lower than 0.199, so even if you consider the role difference between teams totally different, Good, and Benjamin. However, considering that the GAA of the Baron d'Or winner of 2014, C · Ronaldo is 0.175, Messi concludes that there is a sufficient possibility that the national team will be the best player in the world.