https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... t-signing/
Is Lionel Messi still worth the huge cost of signing him?
World's greatest player would instantly improve any team but star's age makes building around him tricky
By
JJ Bull
26 August 2020 • 2:18pm
Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona during the La Liga Santander match between FC Barcelona v Levante at the Camp Nou
Lionel Messi is the best player in the world but his potential suitors will have to weigh the financial cost against potential contribution to their club CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
The simple, and obvious, answer to the question posed in the headline above is, clearly, yes. Lionel Messi is the greatest footballer to ever play the sport, so talented that he alone is worth a lengthy pilgrimage to some foreign land to spend 90 minutes watching, so unique and wonderfully creative that it is difficult to imagine anyone ever doing the things he has done.
But... he is 33 years old. And as anyone reading this who has lived beyond the same age is probably aware, no human can escape the slowing process of time, even if Messi could probably nutmeg it. Could any football club in the world realistically justify the enormous costs involved with signing the best player on the planet?
Messi may be past an age usually considered the physical peak for a forward but he is by far and away the most important player - by miles - in the Barcelona team. He scored 25 goals and provided 21 assists last season, having scored 36 goals and assisted 13 in 2018/19, and the further down his season statistics we explore, the more staggeringly consistent his output looks:
The 25 league goals he scored in 2019/20 is actually the lowest number he has recorded since the 2008/09 season but his overall statistical output suggests he is as brilliant as ever, with Messi scoring highest in our La Liga 2019/20 ranking tool for Attack, Vision, Passing, and Dribble metrics:
It's common for a player to top two of these individual metrics and impress in others. Kevin De Bruyne scored highest in the Premier League for both Vision and Passing last season, for example:
These two examples are from different leagues but the difference between Messi's output and De Bruyne - City's star player - are vast.
Messi's statistics are unbelievable and consistent throughout his time at Barcelona. Last season he created more chances than anyone, took more shots, had the fourth most touches, attempted and completed more dribbles - in almost every single one of the various individual metrics that form these player radars, Messi was either top or near it.
All, that is, except his defensive and physical contribution. This is something that hasn't really changed much, if at all, over the last decade:
It's also not a huge departure from what Guardiola gets out of his current left-footed, highly technically gifted right inside-forward, Riyad Mahrez. Where Messi has made 0.64 tackles per 90, 0.21 interceptions per 90, 1.7 recoveries per 90, and conceded 0.61 fouls per 90 (useful in the tactical fouling strategy that Manchester City definitely don't employ), Mahrez has made 0.85 tackles, 0.55 interceptions, 2.73 recoveries, and conceded 0.39 fouls. The Algerian is definitely busier defensively, but scored 11 and assisted nine. A reminder that Messi finished the league season with 25 goals and 21 assists.
Anyone focusing on Messi during a Barcelona game will have noticed in the past how often he wanders lazily up front, occasionally even standing completely still on the opposite side of play. This certainly used to be the case anyway, as Messi conserved his energy off-the-ball to expend it in short, sharp explosive bursts that could decide the outcome of matches, but ever since Luis Enrique left Barcelona, Messi's role has changed.
Under Guardiola, Messi was a right-sided forward on the team sheet who actually played as a central attacker, flanked by the irrepressible running of Dani Alves on his outside. Nominally a right-back, Alves was essentially the right winger, providing the width that Guardiola needed on the wing to keep the formational structure of his system intact, create overloads in attacking phases and allow Messi to pull the strings.
Barcelona don't play in the same way they used to, no longer relying on the Cruyff variants of a 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 as Guardiola did, and usually set up in a 4-4-2 under Ernesto Valverde and Quique Setien presumably because it best fit the personnel available. Whatever the system, Messi has had something of a free role, with the team entirely dependent on him because it has been built that way.
Were Manchester City to sign Messi, would Guardiola be willing to allow one player to contribute so little to his side's intense pressing style? Even the club's all-time top scorer, Sergio Aguero, has been dropped in the past to fit tactical demands, with Gabriel Jesus' off-the-ball workrate preferred to Aguero's attacking nous for City's Champions League first leg victory over Real Madrid in February this year.
For Guardiola the system is king, and if Messi were unable to press, track and win the ball with the determination and energy that his gameplan requires, would it be worth smashing the club's wage system and causing potential unrest in the squad to accommodate him?
Absolutely yes. Of course it would. Adjustments have to be made for a generational, universal talent like Messi and the last (if it is the last...) goal he scored for Barcelona was hardly an example of a player who needs to 'get stuck in' a little more, and certainly not one in physical decline either:
It's not just that Messi is able to weave his way between five players, holding off three potential fouls on his path to setting up the shot, but the accuracy and power he finds to beat the goalkeeper. He's like a video game character with almost every attribute set to 99, something that has literally been the case in versions of Pes and Fifa over the past decade.
This individual match-winning kind of magic is something that cannot be coached and with the right framework around him, Messi can be the difference between a very good team and a great one. Players win titles and Guardiola knows it.
Asked recently what Guardiola thought of the idea that he was only able to win the Champions League with Barcelona because he had the likes of Andres Iniesta, Xavi and Lionel Messi, the Manchester City manager emphatically agreed.
"I would not argue one second because when I was there I said many times we win because this club had incredible players."
Asked in a separate press conference earlier in his City career who the favourites to win the Champions League were, Guardiola simply replied: "Who does Messi play for?"
Messi has been carrying an inferior group of players for a few seasons now, single-handedly winning Barcelona games they would otherwise lose, bearing the heavy weight of responsibility. We see this in his positioning, with Messi regularly dropping as deep as defensive midfield to get on the ball and take control of the game, like an overworked puppeteer rather than protagonist.
Even then he finds a way to stand out, with WhoScored's player ratings system scoring him the best player on the pitch in 27 of the 44 matches in all competition that he played in 2019/20. For anyone unfamiliar with WhoScored's excellent scoring algorithm, rest assured that this is astonishing.
As for the logistics of this move, Manchester City would receive an enormous commercial and reputational boost were they to pull off the signing of the greatest player on the planet and if anyone can design a tactical structure that maximises the best of every individual - and particularly the star - it is Guardiola.
The best players tend to win the most trophies in football. Whoever has Messi will have one of the best teams in the world.
