Lionel Messis ten stages of greatness

(Additional contributor: Dermot Corrigan)

Editor’s Note: This story was included in The Athletic’s Best of 2020. View the full list.

It is over a decade now since Lionel Messi was first acknowledged as the world’s best player. For many, he has stayed at the pinnacle ever since, although that does not mean he has been standing still. Far from it.

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Messi has kept evolving his game as each season has passed, to such an extent that the now 33-year-old Barcelona club captain is not immediately recognisable as the La Masia graduate who made his league debut for the club all the way back in October 2004.

The lank-haired teenager who put his head down and dribbled past almost the entire Getafe team to score in 2006 is not the same player as the clean-cut false nine who arrived in the penalty area just at the right time to head home in the 2009 Champions League final against Manchester United soon before he won his first Ballon d’Or, or the tattooed and bearded deep-lying playmaker of the last few seasons who lifted a record sixth career Ballon d’Or last December.

Players who have reached the summit — with one obvious Portuguese example — tend to have worked incredibly hard at every little detail to make sure they squeeze every last drop of achievement out of their talent. Others who arrived more perfectly formed — such as Messi’s most famous predecessor in Argentina’s No 10 shirt — do not really feel the need to change too much and mostly play the same position through their careers.

Messi’s development as a player has been different. Not that he is lazy, or does not think about how best to use his talents. He has adapted to different circumstances and changing requirements as the seasons have progressed, constantly reinventing himself and his role in the team. Coaches changed and team-mates came and went. All the while, Messi stayed where he was, but he did not remain the same. 

The ultimate aim through it all does not seem to have been to make himself the best, but to give his team the greatest chance of winning each game and every trophy. The comparisons with Cristiano Ronaldo and Diego Maradona have definitely driven him on but the way he has mastered different aspects of the game has been shaped by the needs of his team in each particular moment. 

Using data from StatsBomb and their Lionel Messi Data Biography, which covers his debut season until the end of 2018-19, The Athletic has picked out 10 different elements of the game at which Messi has excelled, over different times in his career, to show just how broad his mastering of football has been. That all of these abilities can exist inside the same small, slight frame makes him even more freakish as a player and a person. But it makes Messi who he is.

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“Messi does everything well,” Xavi, his long-time Barca team-mate, told La Nacion in 2018. “If he decides to dribble past you, he dribbles past you. If he wants to give a pass, he gives the best assist in the world. If he takes free kicks, he sticks them in the top corner. If he wants to take the ball off you, he takes the ball off you. If you put him at centre-half… well, he’d also be the best centre-half in the world.”

When was Messi’s peak as a dribbler?

At heart, Messi is fundamentally a dribbler.

We’ve all seen the YouTube videos from his formative years back in Argentina when Messi — generally the smallest player on the pitch — would collect possession deep in his own half, roar past opposition challenges, ignore his team-mates, and score brilliant solo goals.

That approach to attacking play was far more typical of his home country than it was of his adopted country. “An esteemed factor in Argentine football,” Jorge Valdano once explained, “is that it is more important to know how to dribble than to know how to pass.”

After arriving in Barcelona, Messi was encouraged to play one and two-touch by his youth coaches, but his father Jorge — often watching from the sidelines — would always encourage him to play the way he knew, the old-school Argentine way.

“He was incredible, he picked the ball up and just started to dribble past everyone,” remembered his Barcelona youth team-mate Victor Vazquez, quoted in Guillem Balague’s biography. “That’s how he used to spend each session, dribbling past everyone and scoring goals, the opposition didn’t matter. We hadn’t seen anything like it before because we were more of a passing side, but he just got the ball and went.”

Messi’s all-round game developed as he progressed through the ranks but he was still a dribbler by the time he appeared for Barcelona’s first XI in 2003. He could dribble in two different ways — either using his speed to carry the ball into space or, more spectacularly, by deceiving an opponent and beating him with skill. 

“I try to trick the defender and find where the space is to escape him,” Messi once explained. “Unbalancing a defender is about bringing him with you, then feinting and moving sideways. When he is unbalanced, that is the time to escape.”

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If there’s one statistic that sums up Messi’s dribbling prowess, it’s this one: in the 452 games analysed for this piece, Messi attempted a dribble in 444 of them.

The ability to take on a defender one-on-one has always been a large part of Messi’s game. In the graphic below, dribbling looks like a declining skill in Messi’s recent seasons, but he is coming down from a God-like status. He is now merely among the best dribblers on the planet, as opposed to far, far exceeding them.

For context, his career-low figure in 2017-18 (Messi played only 92 minutes in 2004-05, so we can safely ignore that season) of 7.3 dribbles attempted per 90 is bested in Europe’s top five leagues only by Felipe Anderson, at the time with Lazio, and former team-mate Neymar at Paris-Saint Germain, according to StatsBomb courtesy of FBRef.com. A career-low number putting him third in Europe is remarkable, to put it mildly.

Messi’s standout season for dribbling came 10 years before that in 2007-08, but it is the only real highlight of a poor season for player and club. Barcelona finished third in the league, their lowest position in five years, with manager Frank Rijkaard leaving at the end of the season for the untested Pep Guardiola. 

Messi himself scored just six non-penalty goals in 28 La Liga games, the lowest tally of his young career so far. It may not have been a season for results but 11.8 dribbles per 90 is a freakish figure and worthy of further digging. 

Of those, 8.6 per 90 were completed, equating to Messi beating his man 73 per cent of the time. While that’s not a career-high — 76 per cent in 2005-06 was his best season in pure efficiency terms — it’s still the third-highest of Messi’s career.

Dribble volume and efficiency is one thing, but even more illuminating to Messi’s evolution is how the locations of these have changed over time. Below shows the change in the location of the dribbles that Messi attempted, with the yellow zones indicating a higher proportion than the red zones.

The 2007-08 season is Messi’s purest year as a winger from this perspective, with latter seasons seeing him move closer and closer towards the opposition’s 18-yard box.

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Dribbling volume is great but, as anyone who watched the younger versions of Allan Saint-Maximin or Adama Traore will tell you, it’s about what comes after the dribble that is important. There’s little use in a player who beats his man and then crosses the ball straight out of play.

Thankfully, Messi has an end product, one that goes far beyond accurate crossing. 

His best seasons for producing a tangible output after a dribble were in 2011-12 and 2012-13, the seasons in which he scored 50 and 46 goals in La Liga respectively. In these seasons, he scored 21 goals following a dribble and produced five assists.

And in true Messi fashion, the only pattern that followed in these goals were the speed in which he went from picking the ball up to scoring. It didn’t matter if the opposition were in transition or camped on the edge of their area, Messi finished his work in a matter of seconds.

Of his goals in 2011-12 and 2012-13 that followed a dribble, none of them saw the Argentinian on the ball for more than eight seconds. As the sample of goals below shows, Messi’s speed of movement and thought helped him score goals all across the pitch.

When was Messi’s peak as a right winger?

In Barcelona’s youth sides, Messi had played in a variety of positions. Although he preferred the central No 10 role — the position he grew up wanting to play in Argentina — this wasn’t always possible because Barca’s academy sides didn’t always use the right formation. Besides, Messi’s preference for dribbling meant he was considered more useful out wide. “Generally when I play out wide, the defenders approach side-on, and I am looking for the moment when the defender stretches his legs, and I am able to beat him,” Messi explained.

In the couple of years before his first-team debut, Messi was fortunate that Ronaldinho was Barcelona’s star. The club were determined that the youth sides would play the same system as the first XI: while previous Barcelona sides used a strict 4-3-3 with wingers going down the outside, Ronaldinho had become the best in the world by drifting inside from the wing.

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The left-footed Messi was therefore never used on the left — the position you would expect for a left-footed dribbler for Barca in the Louis van Gaal era, for example — and instead became accustomed to the right. When he broke into the first team, he essentially mirrored Ronaldinho’s role — the Brazilian (No 10) assisted Messi’s debut goal after Deco (No 20) and Giovanni van Bronckhorst (No 12) were involved in the build-up.

Messi’s first campaign as a regular, 2005-06, ended in disappointment — he tore a thigh muscle in a Champions League quarter-final against Chelsea, and despite believing he had returned to fitness in time for the final against Arsenal, manager Frank Rijkaard disagreed and omitted him from the squad.

Yet Messi still received a couple of Ballon d’Or votes that year at the age of 19. The only wingers who finished higher than him were Franck Ribery — generally playing on the left for Marseille, but on the right throughout France’s run to the World Cup final — and Cristiano Ronaldo, at this stage generally deployed on the right for Manchester United. Already, Messi was very close to being the world’s best right winger.

Messi’s next couple of campaigns demonstrated his unquestionable brilliance, although he was also held back by injury problems. Nevertheless, the Ballon d’Or voting saw him finish third in 2007, behind Kaka and Ronaldo, then second in 2008, behind Ronaldo. Determining when Messi became the world’s best right-winger is inextricably linked to when Ronaldo stopped playing that role — in 2008, Ronaldo was increasingly given a free role at United. By 2009, he was a forward who drifted left. Some point early in 2008-09, during Guardiola’s first campaign in charge, seems the moment when Messi became the world’s best from the right flank.

That Barca team had Samuel Eto’o at centre-forward and Thierry Henry coming from the left wing in a 4-3-3, with Xavi and Iniesta prompting from midfield. A stand-out game was the Champions League quarter-final first leg at home to Bayern Munich in April 2009, when all three forwards scored (Messi twice) in a tremendous 4-0 victory.

Messi got the opener that night at the Camp Nou, running onto a pass from Eto’o into the area from the right and sliding the ball just inside the far post. He returned the favour for the second, driving in from the wing and sliding a reverse pass for Eto’o to score. Messi again arrived at the right time to turn home Henry’s left-wing cross from close range for 3-0. The fourth also came after Messi had dribbled in from the right, played a one-two with Eto’o, and Bayern’s Mark van Bommel tackled him but inadvertently played the ball into Henry’s path.

The same front three started the Champions League final the following month against Manchester United, and while the scoreline (2-0) was less emphatic, the performance was just as dominant. For that game, however, Messi was moved on to a new role.

When was Messi’s peak as a false nine?

Guardiola briefly used Messi as a false nine early on his reign, before the Argentine reverted to the right flank for the majority of 2008-09.

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Guardiola saved that weapon for when it really mattered — for crucial games against title rivals and in the Champions League knockout stage. The approach was most memorably used for the 6-2 thrashing of Real Madrid and in the Champions League final victory over Manchester United.

“It was 100 per cent Pep’s decision,” Guardiola’s assistant at the time, Domenec Torrent, tells The Athletic. “I still remember that day, because when we analysed the opposition I always did Real Madrid. So during the week, Pep asked me, ‘How do they defend?’ He watches all the games but he asked me. (I told him that) the centre-backs don’t follow the No 9, and then he came up with what we all saw.

“We explained to the players: ‘If the centre-back goes after him, you’ve got Thierry Henry on the left and Samuel Eto’o on the right who can go inside. And as normal if the centre-backs don’t come out and Leo joins up with the midfield, we’ll have four against three in the middle’. Of course, he linked up with Iniesta, Xavi… it was fantastic, and as well as that, Leo can drop deep and link up with the midfield and get forward to have a shot.”

That’s what made Messi so thrilling as a false nine — he was equally capable of controlling possession deep in midfield or pouncing in the penalty box. He was a false nine and a real one.

The surprise, then, was that Guardiola decided to move away from that system at the end of 2008-09. He responded to the inevitable departure of Eto’o by using him in a swap deal with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose qualities necessitated a central role, rather than using Messi permanently as a false nine. Ibrahimovic and Guardiola’s relationship was famously tempestuous and he didn’t always start key matches. However, it took until the following season — 2010-11, when Ibrahimovic had departed and David Villa had arrived — for Messi’s default position to be that of a false nine.

While Messi had sporadically demonstrated his brilliance as a false nine in 2008-09, it was only for a couple of games. In 2009-10, it was for around a dozen games. But 2010-11 is when Messi was primarily a central attacker rather than a winger, with Villa and Pedro on the flanks, and when the false nine position became popularised like never before.

“With Leo in the middle he doesn’t have to press so much, in the pressing he only had to make certain movements, and he touched the ball more,” says Torrent.

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But the most crucial change, of course, was that Messi was now much closer to goal.

When was Messi’s peak as a goalscorer?

It would be tempting to say that Messi’s 50-goal season was his best in La Liga (2011-12), but the case needs to be made that the 2012-13 season, in which he scored 46, was even better. The reason? Penalties.

Penalties are converted on average at a rate of 75 per cent, so roughly three in every four are scored. Save for open goals from very close range, they’re the best-quality chance you can get on the pitch. Getting chances in open play is so much tougher than converting a penalty, so penalties are often dropped out of player’s seasonal stats to get a truer representation of their goalscoring prowess.

Messi is no different. His La Liga career has seen him score 58 of 69 penalties, which equates to a scoring rate of 84 per cent, which, of course, is above average.

So taking penalties out of the equation, Messi’s goalscoring seasons (including 2019-20) look like this…

Messi’s 50-goal 2011-12 season was boosted by 10 goals from the spot after playing 3,270 minutes. That number of minutes is just 150 short of a full season, which is 620 minutes more than he played in 2012-13.

The 2012-13 season saw Messi score a stupendous 42 non-penalty goals in the number of minutes equivalent to 29 full games. A goals-per-90 ratio of 1.37 (including added time) is unmatched in the Premier League going back to 2006-07, and likely all the seasons before it too. The closest that a player who’s played 1,000 or more minutes has got to that Messi season’s figures is… Papiss Cisse in 2011-12. Cisse scored 13 goals in 1,113 minutes for Newcastle United, the equivalent of just over 12 games, a rate of 1.05 goals per 90 — nowhere near Messi.

Perhaps a more apt comparison is Mohamed Salah’s debut Premier League season with Liverpool in 2017-18. Salah played 2,921 minutes and scored 31 non-penalty goals. A larger sample of minutes played removes the effect of being used as a substitute, which padded Cisse’s hot scoring streak.

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Even this comparison isn’t close. Salah’s excellence saw him score 0.96 goals per 90, something Messi has near-equalled or eclipsed six times in the past 10 seasons.

The goals of 2012-13 also typify some of Messi’s core finishing moves. There are the lobs, the shots from the left side of the box to the bottom-right corner, the free kicks and the one he used most often that season, wandering into space in the box, collecting the ball unmarked, and smashing it home.

Both goals on the opening day of La Liga 2012-13 were poacher’s efforts snaffled up in a crowded penalty area during a 5-1 win at home to Real Sociedad. The following weeks brought two long-range free kicks against Real Madrid, a header against Spartak Moscow, a solo effort versus Athletic Bilbao and multiple measured finishes from his left foot low into either corner.

Neat clips from close range, wrongfooting keepers and leaving them looking silly, became a speciality, including very similar finishes against Levante, Atletico Madrid and Deportivo in La Liga. The two goals from the edge of the box as Barca easily turned around a 2-0 first-leg deficit in the Champions League quarter-finals against Milan stood out for the efficiency of effort. Although surrounded by defenders each time, he just took a touch and fired to the net — one high to the top-right corner, the other low to the bottom-left of keeper Christian Abbiati. He was scoring all kinds of goals and making it all look very, very easy.

All in all, 2012-13 was a complete season when it comes to goals — a high scoring rate and a variety of finishes that made the season his best for scoring goals. However, the campaign did not end well, either for Messi individually or for his team, with coach Tito Vilanova’s serious illness casting a shadow over everything at the Camp Nou. After scoring in 19 consecutive league games as the domestic title race was settled by March, Messi picked up a thigh injury in early April. Although he returned to play the Champions League semi-final first leg at Bayern Munich, he was unable to make an impact as his side were steamrollered 4-0.

“I could not do much about the result, it was a pity,” Messi said himself in the Allianz Arena that night. “They showed they are stronger, they won everything. You could see on the pitch that they were superior.” 

Just scoring as many goals as possible was generally enough for Barca to win the La Liga title and for him to secure personal prizes such as the four consecutive Ballon d’Or trophies from 2009 to 2012. But more was required to make his team dominant again in Europe.

When was Messi’s peak as an assister?

While Messi has scored goals throughout his career, he’s always been a dual threat thanks to his ability to create chances. In fact, since his breakthrough assisting season in 2007-08 in which he recorded 12 assists, he’s only failed to reach double figures for assists once, when he created nine goals in 2016-17.

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Messi was in fact at the peak of his assisting powers this season, providing 21 for team-mates at a per 90 rate of 0.62. That is the joint-most assists by a player in a single season in Europe’s top five leagues this century. For context, Thierry Henry’s Premier League assist record of 20 in 2002-03 saw him produce at a rate of 0.55 per 90. Kevin De Bruyne’s superb season for Manchester City saw him match Henry’s tally, at a per 90 rate of 0.64.

A spell in February stands out in Messi’s season, when he was being hampered by a muscle injury and did not find the net in four consecutive La Liga games. That was his worst run since 2013-14, when he was also playing while not 100 per cent fit. The gap was filled by assists for six of Barca’s seven goals across those games — these included a dribble to draw defenders and then free Ansu Fati into space, dead balls into the box converted by Sergio Busquets and Clement Lenglet, a chipped ball over the top for Frenkie de Jong, and a first-touch pass behind the opposition defence for Antoine Griezmann to score. Even when he could not score himself, he found different ways to make sure his team kept finding the net.

Messi started slowly when it came to creating, and by the end of 2006-07, he had played more than 3,000 minutes and had just three assists to show for it. The 2007-08 season saw him form a great attacking partnership with Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto’o, however, creating three and four goals for them respectively.

That kickstarted Messi’s dominance as a creator, and from 2004-05 to 2019-20 he has created 179 assists in La Liga.

Before this season, Messi’s previous best per 90 figure was in 2010-11, when it was an all-Spanish affair, creating for Bojan (three assists), Gerard Pique (one), Pedro (four), Thiago (two) and David Villa (eight).

The first La Liga clasico of that campaign was the game that really brought to wider attention that he could control a game without having to get on the scoresheet. Messi was involved in the first four goals in the 5-0 win over Jose Mourinho’s Madrid, including two direct assists for Villa. Both were similar moves, with the timing of Messi’s pass and Villa’s run being perfect and Madrid’s back four being cut to shreds.

Villa’s eight goals assisted by Messi that season is the joint-highest by Messi for a single player in a season, alongside Neymar in 2014-15 and Suarez in 2015-16.

What stands out here is the number of different players for whom Messi has assisted goals over the last decade. As the characteristics of his team-mates have changed, so has the best way to put them into position to score goals. Suarez wants the ball in a different area to Neymar, or Cesc Fabregas or Pique.

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While the underlying trend denoted by the dotted line in the first graph appears to be an upward one, in reality, Messi oscillated between being a good and great assister all his career.

When was Messi’s peak in terms of one-twos?

One of Messi’s most potent weapons is his ability to play one-twos, manipulating time and space to get out of tight situations or progress the ball when under pressure. 

Like a true karate black belt, Messi uses the opposition defenders’ momentum against them, moving the ball on when they’re most off-balance, and drifting into the space they’ve left occupied behind them.

The example below against Malaga from 2010-11 shows exactly how Messi does this. First, he receives the ball in midfield from Sergio Busquets.

Straight away, Messi is looking over his shoulder for where the ball is going to next.

He’s being closed down by Malaga’s Ignacio Camacho, but pops the pass off to Xavi first time and gets moving.

Xavi passes the ball back to Messi, first time again, who’s now run past Camacho. 

Camacho is now completely out of the game, and Messi is in the line between midfield and defence, running towards goal with the ball at his feet.

Safe to say, this is the last place you want Messi coming at you from. One-twos are easy to spot when watching football, but there’s no objective definition for them from the data. Here, we define them as all times that Messi receives the ball back after making a pass to a player, with the middle player having the ball for less than two seconds.

Why an example from 2010-11 against Malaga? Well, that was arguably the best season in Barcelona’s history, in which they won La Liga and the Champions League. Messi utilised the one-two more often per game than any other season, seeing a huge increase from the previous season.

And these weren’t just to generate the odd bit of space ahead of the attacking line: Messi scored four goals and assisted two more after one-twos, both career highs up to that point. The 2010-11 season was when Messi started playing inside more, and the map of where his one-twos took place over time reflects this.

Initially, Messi was linking up on the wings, and in his first few seasons he was mainly bouncing off the likes of Ronaldinho or Eto’o.

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With Dani Alves arriving in 2008-09, Barcelona’s right-side was one of, if not the best in Europe. 

Messi and Alves formed an electric partnership, with Alves one of Messi’s most common one-two collaborators in all but one of his seasons at the club. In 2012-13, the season that Alves wasn’t one of Messi’s most-common partners, was when he scored 46 goals in La Liga and, as noted above, was his best season for goalscoring. 

Messi scored nine goals and assisted three more following one-twos in 2012-13, the most potent he has ever been at creating from these situations.

When was Messi’s peak at playing through-balls?

Unlike his innate ability to dribble with the ball, threading passes through opposition defences is something that Messi has learned on the job.

In fact, Messi’s first successful through-ball came later than you might expect in his career, in 2005-06 away to Espanyol. Following a corner for Espanyol, Messi picks up a blocked shot…

… jinks past an onrushing defender…

… and slots through to team-mate Juliano Belletti (who is normally at right-back).

The Brazilian fails to convert the chance, but this was the first evidence of Messi’s ability as a passer on the counter: able to break lines and create chances from deep. From that point onwards, Messi gets more and more comfortable attempting through-balls, with the peak coming in 2015-16, the season in which he combined with Suarez and Neymar to score 131 goals in all competitions and 90 alone in La Liga. 

Messi attempted an average of 3.4 through-balls per 90 minutes, an astonishing figure given the leader for attempted through-balls in the Premier League in a single season since 2017 is Philippe Coutinho in 2017-18, who attempted a measly 1.4 per 90 minutes.

The general trend of Messi’s use of the through-ball has been an upward one. Aside from his anomalous 2017-18 season, it’s worth asking whether Messi, who soon turns 33, will remodel his game around his passing ability once his physical merits regress.

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The 2015-16 season also saw career-highs for completed, shot assisting and goal-assisting through-balls too. Twenty-seven of Messi’s 52 completed through-balls led to a shot, a smidge over 50 per cent, and of the 27, 11 were scored. Suarez and Neymar were the main recipients of these passes, with Messi able to put them through around the area, or from deep.

By this stage, the “trident” knew each other’s games inside out and their strengths were perfectly complementary. When Messi got the ball deep, Suarez would aim to pull at least one centre-back out of position, leaving space for Neymar to sprint across into. Again Getafe pop up as an example — in this instance, a 6-0 La Liga victory at Nou Camp in March 2016. Messi put in a spectacular all-round performance, including two pin-point passes behind the defence that freed Neymar for trademark carefree finishes. 

That season’s Copa del Rey final also saw Messi play two perfectly timed and weighted through-balls to set up both goals as Barca beat Sevilla 2-0 in extra-time: the first released Jordi Alba raiding forward from left-back, the second gave Neymar a relatively simple finish.

It wasn’t just the location of the passes that Messi made either, but the technique he employed to get the ball there. Whether on the ground or in the air, Messi split more defences than any player likely in La Liga history in 2015-16.

Any way you try to cut it, 2015-16 was the season of the Messi through-ball.

When was Messi’s peak as a No 10?

Messi’s international career feels like something of a side story throughout his development into the world’s best in so many categories. As a general rule, his international evolution tended to be a couple of years behind his club evolution — he would often start starring for Barcelona in one respect, only for people to question why he couldn’t do that for Argentina. In general, sooner or later, he did it for Argentina too.

In terms of excelling as a true No 10, however, there’s something of a role reversal here. While Messi was initially considered a right winger at Barcelona, and his development into a central player was something of a surprise move, back home Messi was considered the classic Argentine No 10. He sometimes had to play second fiddle to others early in his development but Messi was playing as a No 10 at international level long before he was doing so at club level.

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At the 2010 World Cup, for example, when playing under the ultimate Argentine No 10, Diego Maradona, Messi was fielded behind two strikers in a 4-3-1-2 system. Messi largely played well in that role, albeit without finding the net.

After a stint as a false nine and some spells on the right, Messi was deployed as a No 10 in a 4-2-3-1 for the 2014 World Cup, behind Gonzalo Higuain. From that position, he won the Golden Ball after a couple of fine goals and some brilliant through-balls. In truth, Messi was a touch fortunate to win it — James Rodriguez and Arjen Robben had surely been better — but he was, nevertheless, officially the World Cup’s best player. 

At club level, it wasn’t until 2017-18 that Messi started playing that role. Luis Enrique, who had returned Messi to the right flank, departed — as had Neymar, Barca’s third world-class forward. And therefore Ernesto Valverde moved to a 4-4-1-1 formation, with Messi behind Suarez. Although theoretically playing in similar zones to when he played as a false nine, now Messi had a proper centre-forward ahead of him, pushing back the centre-backs and creating space behind. “I felt the freedom to play further back, to start the play from deep, without losing the ability to get near to the opponents’ goal, which is always what I like,” he said.

This was probably the period when Barca depended most upon Messi — the side lacked the structure and complexity of previous sides, didn’t have much goalscoring ability from wide, and often became all about their No 10 bridging the enormous gap between midfield and Suarez. At times, Messi’s importance became almost a parody. In a 1-0 victory over Real Valladolid in February last year, Barcelona had 20 attempts at goal. Twelve of those shots were from Messi, the other eight were from chances created by Messi. 

But this was the role he’d always wanted to play — in the centre, with a striker ahead of him. It took the best part of 15 years, but Messi was finally performing consistently as Barcelona’s No 10, in terms of his role, not merely his shirt number. He was, of course, the world’s best in that position.

When was Messi’s peak in terms of playing minutes?

It’s arguably the simplest metric in football — but, peculiarly, one which is often overlooked in terms of importance. “Minutes played” does exactly what it says on the tin, but acts as a proxy for two fairly telling things. First, how often is the player fit and available to play? Second, how often is he selected?

With some obvious caveats, “minutes played” over a long-term period often provides a pretty clear picture about a league’s star players. For example, taking the last 10 years of complete La Liga seasons — 2009-10 to 2018-19 — the top 10 includes the division’s best centre-backs — Diego Godin, Sergio Ramos and Pique — probably its best holding midfielder — Sergio Busquets — and surely its three best forwards — Antoine Griezmann, Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi.

Messi, significantly, is at No 1 — he played the equivalent of 15 and a half complete games more than any other player. For an attacker whose game features explosive movements and who is forced to withstand plenty of tough tackles, this is a remarkable achievement. 

As the below graph shows, Barcelona’s treble-winning campaign under Luis Enrique was Messi’s peak in this respect — he played 99 per cent of Barcelona’s La Liga minutes. Of outfield players, this was the most in the division.

On only one other occasion has Messi been in the top 10, but his overall record of avoiding serious injury is excellent; he’s only dipped below 75 per cent of minutes once. It’s also worth pointing out that Messi has already played more games than any foreign player in La Liga history.

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Messi’s dietary change during Pep Guardiola’s first season in charge is well-known — he needed to convince Messi to consume less red meat, fizzy drinks, pizza and popcorn — but he’s made further improvements in recent years. He’s tried even harder to avoid sugar and to eat more nuts and seeds.

“It is difficult because your mind is fine. You think that you are 25 and you can continue doing the same things,” Messi told Marca earlier this season. “But the body rules and there are circumstances in which you have to be more careful than before. Adapting to it requires a process and preparing differently for training and matches.”

Another factor in Messi’s massive amount of time spent on the pitch is his reluctance to be substituted early, or to be rested against “lesser opponents”. Barca coaches, including Luis Enrique and Ernesto Valverde, learned over time to accept that Messi himself decided whether he needed a rest. Generally, he decides that he doesn’t.

“I’d like, and he would too, for him to play every minute,” Luis Enrique said in 2016. “The player is in charge of this one, it depends on how he feels.” 

Messi has also changed his style on the pitch. Whereas once he was tasked with leading Barcelona’s press and was constantly sprinting forward to shut down opponents, today he plays a languid role without possession and saves his sprints for when they’re really needed, in the attacking phase of play. Messi sometimes appears to cover less ground than any Barca player — but when you realise his statistics in terms of minutes played, it seems a fair compromise. 

When was Messi’s peak as a free-kick taker?

Messi didn’t take a single free kick until his third season at Barcelona, with Ronaldinho claiming most of the opportunities once they arose. The Brazilian’s conversion was seemingly quite erratic, but overall he was a great free-kick taker — just one goal from 32 attempts in 2004-05 and 2005-06 combined, and then exploding and scoring eight from 65.

Overall Ronaldinho scored nine free-kicks from a total of 97 attempts from 2004-05 to 2007-08. According to StatsBomb’s xG model, he put away nine free kicks when the average player would score just 4.4 goals on average. With the caveat that this is a small sample size, it’s safe to say that Ronaldinho was something of a free-kick expert — a statement that passes the eye test.

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Messi’s trajectory as a free-kick taker at Barcelona has some notable similarities to that of Ronaldinho. He started slowly, taking few and not scoring too many in his formative seasons at the Nou Camp.

Messi attempted a total of 36 free kicks in the five seasons from 2006-07 to 2010-11, scoring three goals. A goal every 12 free-kicks is pretty good, seeing Messi at about 8 per cent when xG suggests that the average player from these free-kicks would have scored 2.3 goals, an expected conversion rate of 6 per cent.

Was this just luck in a small sample of games or a sign of what’s to come?

Despite Ronaldinho leaving the club at the start of Guardiola’s reign in 2008-09, Messi had to wait until 2010-11 until he was the club’s regular free-kick taker. Dani Alves took the bulk of the efforts in 2008-09, and he and Messi took an equal 11 each in 2009-10.

From 2011-12, Messi’s volume of free kicks shot up. He became Barcelona’s de facto taker, attempting more than any other player. A greater sample of efforts gives a better indication of how good Messi truly was from dead-ball situations.

From 2011-12, Messi’s taken on more and more free-kick attempts per 90, peaking in 17-18 at 1.35 per 90. Again, for a bit of context, Harry Wilson tops the Premier League rankings this season with 0.65 attempts per 90.

The early 2010s saw Messi attempt many more free-kicks than earlier in his career, but his efficiency slipped slightly. 

Sixteen goals from 212 attempts is a conversion rate of 7.5 per cent — the average player is expected to convert at a rate of 6 per cent. Messi is hardly average when it comes to scoring free-kicks, but he is not blowing the doors off either.

The similarity to Ronaldinho comes back when looking at the more recent data — getting better with age. Messi scored 12 goals from free kicks in 2017-18 and 2018-19, and has five this season too. The time when Messi became best at free kicks is now.

Attempts in 2017-18 and 2018-19 were converted at a rate of 13.6 per cent compared to the average of 7 per cent, which is very good, and over the last three seasons in the Premier League, no player has matched Messi’s volume and ruthlessness from free kicks.

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The Leicester City midfielder James Maddison has four goals from 29 attempts, but he’s taking just 0.48 shots from free-kicks per 90. Marcus Rashford’s played plenty of games over the past couple of seasons for Manchester United and is taking 0.5 shots from free-kicks per 90, but has scored just once.

In December 2018, Messi even scored two free kicks in the same game, and in the extra heated atmosphere of the derby at city neighbours Espanyol. The first was from a central position 25 yards out, curled over the jumping wall and out of the reach of goalkeeper Diego Lopez’s left hand, hitting the side-netting inches from the top-right corner.

Later in the game, from a less promising position and angle for his left-foot, he confidently flighted the ball over the wall and into the top-left corner, leaving the beaten keeper sat on the floor shaking his head in disbelief.

“I try and follow a ritual with my free kicks,” Messi said during a rare mixed zone appearance after that game. “When it goes well, I try to always take it the same way, so that it goes well again. Two came off today, other days I take loads and don’t score any. I had the good fortune to score two in a row today.” 

The more he practised, the luckier he got, perhaps. He had similar good fortune in the reverse fixture the following March at the Camp Nou. Espanyol had held Barca scoreless for 70 minutes before a foul inches outside the penalty area gave Messi a chance. With little space to play with, he pulled out a Panenka chip that led backpedalling Espanyol defender David Lopez to obstruct the scrambling Lopez on the line, and the ball nestled in the net.

The final weeks of the 2019-20 La Liga season even saw opponents try new ways to thwart Messi’s genius from free kicks. Sevilla had both a player running back to the goal-line to cover a post, and another lying on the floor in front of the wall. Two games later Celta Vigo moved defenders back onto both posts when he stood over a free kick 20 yards out. Messi sized up the situation, saw that it allowed his team-mates to move closer to the goal, and simply chipped his free kick to Suarez, who had a handy header to score from point-blank range.

This strangest of seasons has helped bring back into focus many of the different qualities and abilities which Messi has shown across his long career.

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In other years he has made more dribbles, scored more goals and played more minutes, but never before had he been such a dominant figure, in both Barca’s team and across the Spanish league generally.  

The newest element of 2019-20 was Messi now being his team’s most vocal leader off the pitch. He had now grown in stature to overshadow everyone at the Nou Camp, and was willing to use that power. Former team-mate and now blaugrana sporting director Eric Abidal, and even club president Josep Maria Bartomeu, were put firmly in their place in local media interviews or via Instagram posts. 

Following the return from lockdown, Messi often seemed to be almost single-handedly trying to keep an otherwise hapless Barca side in the title race against a much more capable and efficient Real Madrid side. Newly clean-shaven, and looking slimmer and fitter than before the break, he was the main playmaker in midfield, its primary assister and maker of chances, while also being its most reliable and consistent finisher. He was now individually capable of just doing many more things than ever before, and doing them all very, very well.

“Leo is such an intelligent player, and he always looks for the positions on the pitch where he can have an advantage,” former Barcelona player and now LaLiga TV analyst Albert Ferrer tells The Athletic. “Before, he was very electric, very fast, and was always taking people on and beating them. Then he was more decisive for the goals he scored. Now as Barca’s style is evolving, he gives more assists, moves the ball around more, everything passes through him. Barca depend on him so much, he is more decisive than ever now.”  

In June, Messi scored the 700th goal of his career. It was not enough to stop Real though and losing out in the title race hurt, badly.

He also turned 33. Enjoy him while you can.

(Photo: Manuel Queimadelos Alonso/Getty Images)

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