
Messi Walks Better Than Most Players Run - colinprince
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/messi-walks-better-than-most-players-run/
======
huffmsa
As with just about everything, moving fast is only useful if you're going in
the correct direction.

A lot of effort in sports and business is wasted by correcting from incorrect
predictions. What Messi is good at is predicting where and when to be to
maximize the probability of a successful outcome.

Watching him play is a curiosity as well, unlike a lot of other players who
make their decision to pass or continue after their first move, Messi almost
always continues to the second move when he has the ball.

He probably turns it over at a higher rate than most, but his touches
typically occur in those previously mentioned high probability positions on
the field, meaning that when he's not turning it over, he's putting shots on
goal.

Since the cost of a turnover really isn't that high given the rate of change
of possession in the game, he seems to be acting optimally.

Edit and addendum:

The guy who's always out fundraising might look like he's doing a lot of work,
but it's very likely that the guy who only does the roadshow when the
P_success is high will outperform the jackrabbit.

~~~
samsonradu
Note that Messi is, at times, criticised for not playing defence which means
more effort running back and forth. He is definitely doing the right thing
when attacking but it depends what one optimizes for.

~~~
sleavey
Barcelona have built their team around him for the past 10 years. As their
most important attacking asset, he's has the least responsibility to defend.

~~~
samsonradu
It doesn't really work like that. Everyone has the responsibility to do their
best in the context of the team. If one is more capable he does more, there's
no passing responsibility at this level and there is no preferential
treatment. Everyone has to do everything in their power to help the team. When
Barcelona was in its prime shape and Messi was scoring/helping score more than
Barcelona's defence could take on it was ok. When the team does not win and
you did not give all, it's a problem isn't it?

Of course this is just a superficial comment and take it with some salt, I
have no clue what goes on the pitch, it might also be that he cannot sustain a
full 90min and be productive attacking while also doing a degree of defense.

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orf
Great article, very interesting analysis. I have some friends who absolutely
love football and understand the metagame a lot better than me - when you
watch it at first you have no idea how complex the various player movements
are, making space, finding space, predictions etc.

On a side note, I really wish they would name football by its proper name:
football, not soccer. To the billions of people who follow it globally that's
the name of the sport.

~~~
jjeaff
In Spanish, they call it fútbol, rather than football, and in Chinese, I think
it is pronounced something like Zúqiú. Most Southeastern Asian countries don't
call it football or a variation thereof. Australians and parts of the British
isles call it soccer I believe as well.

Things are named and pronounced differently in different languages.

The fact is, "football" was already taken in the American vocabulary by the
time soccer rose to popularity in the US.

~~~
orf
Isn't the spanish version just Football, but in Spanish?

~~~
losvedir
Eh, it might as well be the equivalent of "soccer" (a meaningless made up
word), since the Spanish word for neither "foot" nor "ball" are in the name.
(In contrast to Chinese's zuqiu which is literally "foot" "ball").

~~~
barrkel
Soccer is short for association football, formed analogously to rugger, which
is short for Rugby football.

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TimJYoung
You see this in hockey, also. Good players are very good at slyly getting into
position when they're away from the puck. With hockey, if you skate too hard,
defending players notice it (you can also hear the skate blades digging in)
and will start keeping an eye on you or actively covering you.

Good players also do sneaky things like take a little longer to recover from a
hard check and then, when everyone has skated away from them while they're
still down on the ice, slowly sneak into a prime scoring position _behind_ the
defensive players where they can't be easily seen.

~~~
BozeWolf
Waiting behind defensive players wont work in soccer/football... Those players
are offside. This means they are not allowed to receive the ball from a team
member.

~~~
TimJYoung
Horizontally behind (in the same zone) is what I was referring to. Picture the
play all going to one side of the defensive team's zone, while there are still
stragglers on the other (horizontal side).

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_ttg
Related - LeBron James moves slower than 99% of all rotation players, and has
thereby been able to play more minutes in more games than ever without a
dropoff in production. [http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23384071/lebron-
james-pla...](http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23384071/lebron-james-plays-
rests-keep-cleveland-cavaliers-hopes-alive)

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volkk
this is interesting, however i'd like to mention that the example given in the
video, the concept of creating spacing on the opposite side of the field isnt
a foreign one at all in soccer. generally, the ball creates gravity around it
sucking in defenders and players, and there will always be a very open player
on the opposite side of the field to pass to if an attacker with the ball is
in good position to do so or if it makes sense.

messi definitely is one of those players who plays in a smart way where he
doesn't need to run too much to tire himself out. however i also believe that
there is a lot of value in a fast paced ball movement. the sort of play gets
everybody involved in a high energy mental sort of way, whereas messi's
relatively low energy, whilst clearly effective, is only effective because
messi is such a fantastic/smart dribbler

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rntksi
Nice. Notice also how in the recent match of Argentine vs Iceland (their first
time playing for the World Cup), the Iceland team decided to play defensively
but _NOT_ to mark Messi.

~~~
toolslive
In their famous win against the Argentina of Maradona (Spain 1982), Belgium
decided not to put an extra man marking defender on Maradona, while back then
it was customary to do this. Now, if they would have lost the game, that
decision would have been regarded as utterly stupid, while now it's seen as a
brilliancy of the coach. You should take all of this with a grain of salt.

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treya
Messi is doing several things in the referenced video. First, he's staying
wide (almost to the touchline) which is drawing the 2 defenders towards him.
This increases the open space for attack, but more importantly it betters the
overall ratio of attackers to defenders in the active part of the field. He's
also intentionally walking. Running, and more so sprinting, causes opposing
players to be more aware of you. Walking suggests you aren't actively
participating. When the defenders turn their attention to the play, he slowly
moves in behind them - this puts him in a more dangerous position (this isn't
a great clip to demonstrate this because he ends up having to back up to
receive the cross.) Notice also he's positioning himself so he's not
substantially closer to one defender than the other - you don't really see the
effect of it here - but that will tend to cause both players to cover him. If
he can pull two defenders instead of one to cover him, he really doesn't need
to do anything else to increase the odds for his team. But space-making isn't
the real genius of Messi. His ability and willingness to take on several (or
more) players at once, aside from the obvious advantage when he scores in such
situations, will draw opposing players to him, opening up the rest of his team
for through-passes into dangerous positions where defenders have been pulled
out of place.

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sangnoir
In the article, I didn't see how they controlled for the team's behaviour in
accommodating Messi's position. He is one the teams MVP and it is likely (IMO
- I'm speculating) the team will dynamically reposition to accommodate Messi's
current position, meaning he's less likely to need to run.

Mapping this to software teams: Messi would be the super-smart rockstar
developer who doesn't get bogged down with busy work or bug-fixes. If we
compare his rate of shipping software compared to his team-mates (or other
more balanced teams), we'd have to control for how the rest of the team clears
his way.

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epx
There was a famous phrase by a hockey player (Gretsky?) - I don't go where the
ball is, I go where it is going to.

~~~
edanm
That was indeed Gretzky, but FYI in hockey it's called a puck.

~~~
royroyroys
In 'hockey' there is a ball. In 'ice' hockey it's a puck. (I also realise
Gretzky is an ice hockey player, but thought it was an appropriate pedanticism
given the discussion of the name of 'football'/'soccer' above :))

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benmmurphy
when you are playing an offensive position you get to choose how you want to
play the game. if your advantage is bursty movements but you don't have as
good endurance then it is much better to conserve your energy and not get in a
duel where you don't have an advantage.

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lordnacho
I love how data analysis and visualization are coming into football
commentary, mainly via blogs like this. It makes a huge difference to how I've
viewed the game over the years.

Unfortunately, the pundits they choose as TV analysts are typically not well
versed in stats and probability, and often all you get from them is the
experience of having played.

There was a thing about expected goals recently, where the TV expert dismissed
it. I think it's a sensible thing to look at.

~~~
chasely
I just wish data were more availabile. Given that football/soccer is a
continuous game (as opposed to the discreet stop/start of American football or
baseball), gathering data requires a bit of labor so most of the data products
are expensive.

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a_imho
Unless I'm misinterpreting the chart (which starts at 5 miles btw) it does not
even support the claim made in the title. There are plenty of players who run
more and indeed contributed more goals+assists per 90 minutes.

Messi is obviously one of the best players ever, but his stats are inflated by
playing in one of the dominant club teams. His stats for the national team
while still very good are not _that_ much better.

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IshKebab
Somebody saw this and didn't give any credit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/89aruc/lio...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/89aruc/lionel_messis_efficiency_he_runs_fewer_meters/)

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forapurpose
There's an incredible, predictable phenomenon in sports that the best player
on the team gets the most criticism. I've seen awful teams with one superstar,
and the popular opinion of why they lose is that the superstar isn't doing
enough or, God forbid, isn't superman/woman and has weaknesses. It's never
that the other 4 / 10 / 21 / etc people on the field who are terrible.

Then the superstar retires, memory of the absurd criticism is obscured by a
haze of nostalgia, and they become examples of perfection which the next
generation of superstars can't possibly live up to.

Messi is arguably the best ever. If he's not good enough for you, if he's not
perfect enough for you, you're going to be disappointed with life and the
human beings in it.

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anhari
I think Ovechkin is a great example of this as well. He has the burst for when
he needs it, but a lot of the time he is nonchalantly positioning himself
perfectly.

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nodesocket
How do they get continuous player and ball tracking data? Are their sensors?
Seems like all major American sport franchises (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA) would love
to have this data. Though not sure how I feel about it. I am purest (big
baseball fan) and a lot of these technology additions deteriorate the essence
of the game.

~~~
forapurpose
> Seems like all major American sport franchises (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA) would
> love to have this data

The NFL and NBA already have it, as do college (American) football teams,
AFAIK. I don't know about American baseball, but I do know that they track
things like the rotational velocity of pitches and, very trendy now, the
'launch angle' of a batted ball (I suppose the movement of baseball players,
other than the efficiency of fielders responding to a ball, is neither
interesting nor unpredictable).

Here's an article about that data as applied to Lebron James, who apparently
is very efficient with his movement like Messi.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17333058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17333058)

I wonder why all sports don't put sensors in balls to eliminate judgment calls
by referees, but perhaps either it's not worth the expense, it won't bring in
more fans, or like self-driving cars, the computer errors will seem egregious
to fans.

~~~
nodesocket
But the balls (baseball, footballs, etc) and players are not wearing sensors.
This is done using cameras, not data directly sourced from the players and
balls.

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sAbakumoff
Love this article. Messi is the sensational player and dissecting his genius
looks interesting

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kerng
Interesting article, according to this wouldn't Coutinho be the better team
player contributing most overall? Messi doesn't do much defense, so naturally
he stands around more in the front and FC Barcelona built everything around
that.

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sunstone
The one time I saw Wayne Gretsky play live (ice hockey) I noticed he played in
a very similar manner. Floating most of the time but turning on the jets when
an opportunity presented.

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rurban
Just like James Harden. If you have superior technical capabilities you know
when to rest, when to slow the game down, how to orchestrate a successful
dribble and wait for your colleagues to get into position. Most coaches
understand that, fans often not so.

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amelius
Somewhat related, did anyone analyze the probability that the best team wins
the tournament in soccer?

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mamcx
>Can we say Messi gets a lot of his space by not chasing the play? Yes, that’s
precisely what our research shows.” Bornn said. “Is he doing it deliberately?
To answer that, you’d probably have to ask the man himself.”

I will give my own experience, as a _TERRIBLE_ sport player at any sport you
can name on earth, and one of the worst soccer players you could met.

Still, eventually I was selected for many street plays (were players are _more
brutal_ , being the most nerd is a huge disadvantage, and most are very
"serios" in the game).

WORST, in the streets of Colombia we play "mini soccer"/futsal. Is even more
fast paced, the space is limited, and not much time to be idle, and the damm
ball is heavier and HURT MUCH MUCH MORE. The goalkeeper is the more
insane/brave of all. Is so fast that we don't play for time (like soccer) but
up to # of scores (ie: "The game is to the first to score 12")

\----

> Is he doing it deliberately?

Totally. Just the fact he walks much more and move _tell it_.

In my case, I do it to be usefull as bad player, I become a "strategic
hindrance".

I play defense most of time, because lack of qualities for offense but also,
because I play strategy because my body have not time to act fast :)

I always look at the play, and just move to where the ball must come in. Most
player get in a hurry when get the ball and try hard to be liberated from the
burden -and is true for "professionals" look at plays long enough and it
become obvious.

So this mean a) pass it fast, or b) run like hell and pass it fast. So, I get
into position and suddenly I was always in the _most inconvenient of the
places_ for the opposite team. (this was the fact I get selected: People start
to note that I ruin a lot of plays!)

Rarely I'm able to get the ball, and is easy to overcome me with dribbles.

However, disrupt the flow is _more than enough_.

Even when other players let me alone with the goalkeeper, I just move to cover
the largest angles in the field, to obstruct them.

This work most of time. I force them to fire, or try to get around me, that
disrupt the flow and allow to lost control or to the goalkeeper to do his play
- In mini soccer, the goalkeeper is more offensive-.

Now, because most latin-america players play from young age -mean street
soccer- I suspect you quickly get a sense of movement/space faster (mini
soccer mean many more plays mean many more experience).

And if you have talent, like Messi, apply the same idea and now know how take
over the ball?

You have the key to victory.

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anonymousDan
Oh man, what a nothing article. Wide players staying wide to stretch the
defence - revolutionary!

~~~
TheRealPomax
Sarcastically revolutionary, because everyone does this, every game. We all
know it, we all see it on every team across every league.

Oh wait, no, sorry: the complete opposite of that. This guy exhibits extreme
outlier behaviour while also being one of the most successful players in the
game. Maybe there's something worth analysing in terms of why that might be.
You know, like the research referenced in this article.

