The undisputed legend of Barcelona, Lionel Messi is
not fading anytime soon as he has discovered a way to stay in the limelight through dead ball.
Sevilla were the first team to suffer from Messi’s
set-piece brilliance this season before Real
Valladolid succumbed to the same fate and then
Celta Vigo conceded two in the space of 20 minutes.
Messi has always had an impressive free-kick in his
locker, but it’s in recent years that his accuracy has really improved and he’s scored 19 across the last three seasons alone.
Going to a much broader perspective, Messi alone
has scored more free-kicks since the 2011/12
season than top teams in the big five European
leagues. Not players. Teams!
Messi has converted 29 in La Liga, while everyone at
Juventus combined have scored 27, Real
Madrid have 23, Roma and Olympique Lyonnais have 21 and PSG have 20.
At 32 years of age, it’s easy to imagine that
Messi’s contribution to Barcelona at top level will
decline significantly, but with performances like this
– he can easily remain at the top for even more
years to come, without having to do a whole lot as well.
While his arch-rival, Cristiano Ronaldo has recently
struggled to keep up with the physical demands of
his gameplay, Messi has simply perfected something less demanding for himself. And on
accessions where he can’t glide through players or
make darting runs through the defence, all he needs
is a few set-pieces and he could yet still dominate
the headlines – as we’ve seen on more than one outing.
Anyone who thinks free-kicks and set-pieces are not
skills to be mastered should probably think
again. According to Marca, Messi has
scored four free-kicks from 10 attempts in La Liga,
thus giving him a conversion rate of 40% so far this
season.
Compare that to Manchester United who have
dispatched just two of the six penalties they’ve
been awarded in the Premier League, producing a
conversion rate of just 33.3% .
So, in other words, Messi is deadlier from free
kicks than United are from penalties despite being
just one player and having to shoot from twice the
distance. Speaks volumes on how Messi has turned set-pieces to his natural domain.
Young-po Reporters 