Lionel Messi’s stats since 2015 show how bizarre it is that he hasn’t won a Ballon d’Or since. Pretty remarkable numbers indeed!
Lionel Messi and Cristiano have held a duopoly on footballs biggest individual prize for a really long time. Such was their dominance that for ten years no other footballer apart from the two ever won the Ballon d’Or!
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As with most things, their strong hold finally came to an end when Luka Modric displaced them to win the award last year. Virgil Van Dijk looks good to win it this season. However, when you look at Lionel Messi’s numbers, you’ll start to ask how come he hasn’t won another Ballon d’Or since 2015?
Lionel Messi’s last, as has been mentioned before, came in 2015. The same year Barcelona completed the treble. A trio of the La Liga, Copa del Rey and the Champions League combined with his brilliant individual showing helped him win the coveted prize.
Somewhere along the way, the European showpiece became integral to the requirement for the award. Ronaldo helped himself to two consecutive Ballon d’Ors and Luka Modric picked one himself as Real Madrid completed their hat-trick of Champions League titles.
Liverpool’s recent victory has now placed Van Dijk in good contention. However, if the award was still awarded on the basis of individual merit, Messi was bound to pick one or two more awards by now.
Lionel Messi’s stats since 2015 show how bizarre it is that he hasn’t won a Ballon d’Or since
In his previous 4 seasons, Messi has scored 191 goals in total. The breakdown being 41, 54, 45 and 51 goals in all competition.
If that were not enough, images have been circulated via a fan that proves that Messi’s contribution has been more than just goals and assists. The two graphs produced show that Lionel Messi has been extremely vital to this Barcelona side.
The first one looks at dribbles and key passes. It takes into account the top five leagues in Europe, the Champions League and the Europa League in every season from 2015/16 to 2018/19.
As you can see, Lionel Messi leads the chart with only Neymar and Eden Hazard somewhat close.
However, the second chart, looking at goals and big changes created paint a very clear picture of Messi’s dominance.
Lionel Messi simply races past everyone with no one even near him. Football is more than just stats. However, it also opens up aspects of the game that people sometimes don’t pay much attention to.
While it has been known for years that Messi is a footballing wizard, these graphs do a good job of reminding people just how much better he is than most other players in the world right now.
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