Player Comparison: Carlos Tevez vs Sergio Aguero

Argentinian? Check. Prolific striker? Check. Skilful and small enough to be described as diminutive? Check. That’s basis enough to be the next in line for the player comparison series

 

Contenders

First up is keen golfer, Carlos ‘Carlitos’ Tevez. Born and raised in the tough Buenos Aries area of Fort Apache, Tevez has played for some of the biggest clubs in World football – Boca Juniors, Corinthians, Manchester United, Manchester City and of course, West Ham United. Tevez made the controversial move across Manchester in the summer of 2009, after winning two league titles and the Champions League with United. He was never prolific in his time with the Old Trafford club, often played out wide to accommodate Cristiano Ronaldo, that would change though at City. When he signed, City had just finished 10th.

When Sergio ‘Kun’ Aguero joined in the summer of 2011, City had finished 3rd and qualified for the Champions League, and had just won the FA Cup. Signed from Atletico Madrid (where he was Fernando Torres’ replacement), he joined City as a replacement for the wantaway Captain Tevez. A child prodigy, he made his professional debut at just 15 years of age for Independiente in the Argentina top flight, breaking the record of future father in law Diego Maradona, and made a big money move to Spain in 2006. After scoring 101 goals in 234 goals for the captial club, only a handful of teams could afford both his transfer fee and his wages, fortunately for City and the Premier League, his new club was one of them. Born just 13 miles from Tevez, Aguero is four years younger.

Rules

As usual, the statistical comparison will be based on their form in the league, comparing Aguero’s 2011-12 season with Tevez’s debut season with the club. I’ll be looking into the variables and will take a look at their international form as well. For queries on how the calculations are made, see the Rules and Workings page on the menu bar above.

Stats

First and foremost, the all important measure for a striker – goals scored. Tevez came into his debut City season on the back of a disappointing season fro Man Utd, scoring only 5 league goals (14 in all competitions) after the arrival of Dimitar Berbatov – his worst return since his debut season for Boca. Sergio Aguero was fresh from his best scoring season, hitting 20 La Liga goals (27 in all competitions). The starting point for both was very different, in terms of their own form and the team they were joining. But surprisingly, they had near identical scoring records, both scoring 23 league goals in their debut season’s for the club.

 

In terms of goals per game they both have around a goal every 1.5 games, which is prolific in anyone’s book (apart from whatever book Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi read). Looking a bit closer into the strike rates, and going down to minutes per goal, Tevez actually played almost 300 mintues more than his younger compatriot, or over three games. Advantage Kun.

Next up is the lifeblood of this site – looking at the standard of opposition that the players perform against. Those familiar with the rest of the site (are probably related to me), know that there are two main measures, firstly the average rank of the opposition per each of their goals, and the second is splitting the opponents into a ranges – Top 6, Middle 8, and Bottom 6. Basically, it’s a check to see if a player is a Big game player, Flat track bully or Big game bottler.

Once again, it’s pretty even on this front. Both players have pretty similar averages, with Tevez scoring against teams ranked on average of 11.52, to Aguero’s 11.13 – Tevez’s extra two goals against the bottom 6 means he has a slightly worse average. Advantage Aguero again. Both players scored four goals against the Top 6 – Aguero against 2nd to 6th, and Tevez against 1st to 4th and 6th. Looking a little closer though and Tevez regains a bit of ground, three of his four Top 6 goals were scored against eventual champions Chelsea, and each time they were decisive goals. In the 2-1 win at the City of Manchester Stadium, Tevez scored the winning goal, and in the 4-2 win at Stamford Bridge, Tevez scored a brace. Big game player? His other goal against Top 6 teams was in a 3-1 win over Villa. Aguero’s goals against the Top 6 were against Man Utd (2nd), Spurs (4th), Newcastle (5th) and Chelsea in 6th.

So far, pretty even – with Aguero just about ahead. They’re both goal scorers first and foremost, but how much did they do for their team? Well there’s few in the game that work as hard as Tevez, in terms of closing down opponents, but equally, anyone watching Aguero will notice just how good his movement off the ball is.

However, that’s not something I can measure, so how about assists instead?

 

Once again it’s incredibly close in terms of numbers, Tevez got a credible 7 assists in his debut season, compared to Aguero’s 8. It should be remembered though, that Man City scored 73 goals in 2009-10 compared to the 93 last season. Tevez in general provided assists against the poorer teams, with five coming against the likes of Burnley, Hull, Wigan and Wolves. He did however almost embarrass old team Manchester
United with two assists in the 4-3 defeat at Old Trafford – a game famous for Michael Owen’s late winner.

Aguero on the other hand had a pretty good average ranked opponent per assist, with 9.75. Only one was against the bottom 6, with most against the mid table teams. Like Tevez, he also managed to get two assists against Top opposition, creating Balotelli’s early goal in the 2-1 defeat to 6th placed Chelsea, and then an assist in the 2-0 win over 5th placed Newcastle.

Whilst Aguero’s slightly ahead on points so far, it has to be remembered that whilst his City finished in 1st, Tevez finished in 5th. So how about their importance to the team? Well on the basis of points won from their goals (see Rules and Workings), it’s a pretty convincing win for Tevez.

That’s pretty comprehensive. Whilst Aguero’s debut season has been very impressive, in terms of their importance to the team, Tevez was miles ahead. He scored almost 32% of City’s goals in 2009-10 compared to Aguero’s 25%. And it’s a similar story in points won, with Tevez winning 22% of the team points, compared to just 8% for Aguero. So that’s another one back for Tevez, but at the end of the day, Aguero did score THAT goal (worth 2 points for those interested, and a Title).

So that’s the stats taken care of, anyone wanting to know a bit more? Well Tevez scored five penalties to Aguero’s three, Tevez scored his 23 goals with four shots less (126 to 130) whilst both average one shot on target in each of the games against the Top 6 teams. They’re pretty even, even to that level of detail.

Team mates

I’ll leave the commentary light on this one, just listing the usual line up for each season:

 

In the space of just two seasons, there’s been a pretty drastic change in line up, with just three players in the strongest XI for both seasons. Comparing the midfields in particular that each played with it’s all the more impressive that Tevez managed 23 league goals and seven assists. The two that stand out in particular are the attacking midfielders – City Youth Teamers Stephen Ireland and Shaun Wright-Phillips may have enjoyed some good times with the club, but those days had long passed by this point. Compare them to Silva and Nasri, and you’re an idiot. Each had multiple strike partners with Tevez partnering Adebayor, Santa Cruz and Bellamy at regular times each season, compared to Dzeko, Balotelli and Tevez for Aguero.

International

At the time of writing, it’s 15 goals in 36 caps for Aguero, and 13 in 59 for Tevez. That’s a pretty clear cut win for the younger striker right? Maybe not. Tevez has three World Cup goals to his name, and in the 2004 Olympic games (taken a lot more seriously in South America than here), he top scored with eight goals as Argentina won the Gold. As that was officially an Under 23 Tournament, those eight goals don’t count to his full tally. Both have three Copa America goals, and both scored in 2010′s 4-1 thrashing of Spain.

High Tens if you love Argentina

What Else?

Well the eagle eyed among you will have noticed that I’ve left out Tevez’s 2010-11 season stats, which were pretty important given that he was essentially the difference in qualifying for the Champions League and not. Why? Well I thought it was only fair to compare the debut season of each player, although Tevez did have an unfair advantage of 3 previous seasons in the Premier League.

When looking at his 2010-11 stats, he was once again responsible for 15 points, he scored 20 league goals in 31 games (which was enough to see him share the Golden Boot with Dimitar Berbatov), and he had an average opposition of 12.15 per goal, with a split of 6-11-3 for Bottom 6-Mid 8-Top 6 goals. Pretty consistent. He had six assists.

Conclusion
 
It’s fair to say that Manchester City’s recent past has been dominated by the two Argentinians. Tevez was key in changing both the mentality at the club and in qualifying for the Champions League. It was only once that qualification was complete that it was possible to attract players like Aguero. Robinho may have been been the marquis signing of City’s transformation into a superpower, but it was Tevez’s signing that signalled the intent. Not only were they signing a world class talent, but it’s who they were signing him from.

Of course moving from Top 4 to Champions is another thing altogether, and although he helped near the end of the season, Tevez’s contribution to City’s greatest triumph of modern times was pretty small compared to Aguero. Although he didn’t dominate the team like Tevez had previously, he was the top scorer and he scored the goal to win the title. That one moment is the biggest single contribution that any player made tonL City’s title win. All the work before hand, including Kompany’s winner against United would have counted for zero.
So in what is no way a cop out, it’s a draw!!

They should try and keep them both – they’re pretty handy together:

The Myth of Maradona?

It’s long been the biggest debate in Football – who has been the greatest footballer of all time. The debate has generally included Pele, Cruyff, Best, Ronaldo, Zidane, and lately, Messi – but it’s usually Argentina’s Diego Maradona that comes out on top for the oft used line “he won things with poor teams”. Well I’m gonna look into the accuracy of that statement in an attempt to prove it’s relevance to the World’s greatest debate. The teams in question are Argentina’s World Cup winners of 1986, and Napoli’s Serie A winners of 1987 and 1990. I’ll put forward the data, will add my views and will let you decide:

It’s never really been in doubt. Growing up, my Dad told me the following ‘facts’ about football – Maradona was the best player of all time, George Best was the best player from UK & Ireland, and Alan Devonshire was the best player he saw for West Ham (though there was an honourable mention for Sir Trevor Brooking). And that was that. I had no reason to doubt any of that in the last 20+ years of watching football and from what I remember of Maradona in Italia 90 (especially this assist).

But

In my quest/obsession to discover the best big game players of all time, I noticed a few interesting things. I’ve been trawling through all of the data from World Cups, European Championships, Copa Americas, Champions League, Copa Libertadores, and UEFA/Europa League/Cup Winners Cup games and discovered that a) the Top 20 Big Game Players article is going to take me absolutely ages, and b) Maradona isn’t even in the top 25 Big Game players since 1980 (Semi Finals and Finals).

Argentina 1986:

The best place to start is his greatest achievement in football, and the tournament for which he will be most remembered. The idea that he singlehandedly took his teams to glory was created on the back of the World Cup win in 1986 with an “ordinary team”.

Firstly, the defence:



Titles are won built on solid defences, and regardless of whether you have the best player of all time in your team or not, you won’t win anything without a solid defence. As seen from the table above, letting in less than a goal a game will go a long way to winning the World Cup, and the Argentina 1986 team conceded just five goals in their seven games, including three clean sheets. The previous winners Italy conceded six, and West Germany also conceded five on the way to lifting the trophy in 1990.

Secondly, the squad. We’ve already seen the defence were certainly good enough to win a World Cup, and there were also some other noticeable players alongside Maradona. Whilst he top scored with five goals, Jorge Valdano of Real Madrid (no less) also weighed in with four, including one in the Final. Elsewhere there was also quality from Oscar Ruggeri, Jorge Burruchaga and Sergio Batista. This was by no means a squad without talent.

And what of Maradona’s impact? Well it is fair to say that he did have an amazing tournament. He scored one goal against Italy in the group stages, but it was the Quarter Final meeting with England that really won him the plaudits. He scored a brace against a country that Argentina had recently been at war with, including the best goal ever scored in World Cup football. Then in the Semi Finals against Belgium, he scored another brace in a 2-0 win to get his country to the Final. He also grabbed five assists meaning that he either scored or created 10 of Argentina’s 14 goals.

Is there any other player to so dominate a major tournament? Well yes, just two years earlier in fact. Michel Platini lifted the European Championship Trophy for France. Like Maradona, he was an attacking midfielder, but his impact was arguably bigger than Maradona’s in 1986. He scored 9 goals in 5 games for the French including the winner in the Semi Final and the opener in the Final. In fact his career record of 312 goals in 580 games is almost identical when compared to Maradona’s 311 in 589. Platini’s international record was 41 in 72 games compared to Diego’s 34 in 91. Yet France’s Euro 84 winners are best remembered for the midfield four or magic square of Platini, Alain Giresse, Luis Fernández and Jean Tigana. Not one player, despite his massive input.

There’s little doubt that Maradona was the player of the tournament, but did that mean that the rest of the team were poor?

Napoli 1987:

El Diego was celebrating again a year later as he was instrumental in winning Napoli’s first league title. Once again he had a big input in the team’s win. Though was he the one man team he’s made out to be?

Napoli were the best team in Serie A in 1986-87, they won the most games, lost the fewest, and had the best goal difference. They won the league by 3 points, when a win was only worth 2 points. First up – their league record in isolation:



Once again, we’ll start with the defence. As with Argentina’s 1986 World Champions, Napoli’s 1987 Serie A winners were built on one of the strongest defences in the league. Conceding just 21 goals in 30 games (0.7 conceded per game), meant that they had a great base to build on. Of the 30 games, they kept clean sheets in 16 of them. Only Inter Milan (3rd) conceded less goals that season, with 17. So it’s fair to say that the Title Win was built from the back.

Next up, Maradona’s team mates. The team that won the title that year, ended up with 167 Italian Caps between them – hardly average players. The defence contained a young Ciro Ferrara who went on to win a second title with Napoli, and then to won six more with Juventus, along with the 1996 Champions League. Also in the squad were Italian Internationals Salvatore Bagni, Fernando De Napoli, Bruno Giordano (more of him later) and Andrea Carnevale. Not too shabby.

So it’s been established that the team had a fantastic defence and had other quality in Italian internationals. What did Maradona bring? Well, he was the Top Scorer that season and brought 10 goals in 29 appearances - a one in three strike rate. Of the 10 goals, 2 of them were penlties and two of his goals were scored in a 4-0 win over Empoli. So his goals only affected 9 of Napoli’s 30 league games.



As Serie A was made up of just 16 teams that season, I’ve split the opposition range in Top 4, Middle 8 and Bottom 4, and looking at the above, there’s a glaring omission. As someone who is supposed to have singlehandedly won the league for Napoli, he didn’t score in any of the games against their immediate rivals for the titles – Juventus in 2nd, Inter in 3rd and Verona in 4th. His average ranked opponent per goal was just 10.5 out of a 16 team league. They took just one point from Inter and Verona (0-0′s thanks to the defence), and did the double over Juventus – 3-1 away and 2-1 at home. Despite being top scorer, Maradona was not amoungst the 5 goals. Big game player? Maybe not in that season.

Having looked at the opposition he scored against, and that just 8 were from open play/free kicks, how important were his goals? Well as you can see from the above table, his goals were worth 10 points to Napoli, although this doesn’t take into account the part played by the defence in keeping clean sheets. To put the 10 points into perspective, Robin van Persie’s goals this season have been worth 22 points after 29 games. Perhaps not quite he one man team that’s made out.

And lastly, what of the standard of the league that season? Well Napoli’s 45 points with a +20 goal difference would not have been enough for the title in either the season before or the season after.



Without taking away from the achievement, they won less points, less games and scored fewer goals of the previous and following Champions. They were still undoubtedly the strongest team in the 1986-87 season, but their final performance would not have won them the league in most seasons.
So in reflection of the 1986-87 season, it’s fair to say that whilst his contribution was certainly impressive, and he was certainly their best player, he didn’t by any means carry the team to the title.

First and foremost, the defence was the foundation of the win, with 16 clean sheets. His team mates were by no means ordinary, and Maradona’s actual performance in the most important games were not the difference. Add to that the lower points tally that won the league and I think it’s fair to say that it was definitely not a one man show.

Napoli 1990:

After the glory of their first title in 1987, Napoli would only have to wait a further three seasons to win their second (and at the time of writing, last) Championship title. Once again, Maradona played a massive part in the 1990 triumph, in what was now a 34 game season (18 team league).

Once again, the title was built on a strong defence. In the 34 league games, they conceded just 31 goals, at a rate of 0.9 goals per game and 14 clean sheets. This was once again the second best defence in Serie A, second only to Milan. It’s once again fair to say that without this defensive display, Napoli wouldn’t have been Champions.

Moving on to his team mates, Napoli had strengthened since the 1987 title. Maradona could now list Brazilian International Careca amongst his team. The striker would score 73 goals for Napoli in just 164 games, as well as 29 in 60 appearances for Brazil. Playing alongside Maradona and Giordano, Careca made the final piece of the famous “Ma-Gi-Ca” attacking trio. Another new name from the 1987 triumph was a young Gianfranco Zola. The future Chelsea legend won the title in his first season with the Naples club. Elsewhere, the club had also strengthened in midfield, with another Brazilian international – Alemao, adding some steel in the middle of the park. In all, the 1990 Napoli squad contained players that would finish with over 280 caps for Brazil and Italy. Maradona was the brightest star, but by no means the only one.

And so after seeing another strong performance from the defence, and an improved squad, what was Maradona’s performance like? After starting the season at 29 – near the peak of most players careers, he enjoyed his best league season for the club, with 16 goals in 28 appearances:



That’s a bit more like it. He managed 5 goals against Top 5 teams including a goal against 2nd placed Milan, and a brace against Juventus. His average opposition was a decent 9.18 when the average excluding first placed Napoli is 10. When the big games came about, he stepped up. You can however point to 7 penalties in the 16 goals. His 16 goals, were worth 9 points to Napoli’s points total of 51.

And once again we can also point to the standard of the contenders that season:



For each of the surrounding seasons, Napoli’s haul of 51 points with a goal difference of 26 would agave meant 2nd place. So when looking at Maradona’s contribution, other factors such as the performance of rivals must be taken into account.

So as with his triumphs in 1986 and 1987, Maradona was undoubtedly instrumental. But they were far from ordinary teams that relied solely on their talisman to inspire. Once again, the defence let in less than a goal a game, the squad had lots of quality in, and the level of opposition was lower than in surrounding seasons. At least in this season, you can point to Maradona’s performance in the big games to show his importance.

Other:

World Cup 1990 – He took Argentina to final but scored no goals
Copa Italia 1987 – 10 games, 7 goals as Napoli lifted the trophy
UEFA Cup 1989 – 3 goals in 12 appearances as they won the trophy

In Conclusion:

There’s no doubt that Maradona is one of if not the greatest footballer there has ever been, no one can argue against that with any real conviction. However, the notion that he’s the greatest because he won trophies with weak teams is not something that can be used in his favour. As seen above, although a key part in each of the trophies he won, he couldn’t have done it without strong defences behind him.

He didn’t singlehandedly win the tournaments on his own, when his list of team mates include Valdano, Ferrara, Zola, Careca et al. He didn’t score in either of the World Cup finals he appeared in, and only one of the Semi Finals. When Napoli won the Copa Italia in 1987 over a two legged final, Maradona was not on the scoresheet despite a 4-0 aggregate win. He did score in the UEFA Cup Final win against Stuttgart, but that was from the penalty spot. Comparing him with the other greatest attacking midfielders and in the big games, he comes out a distant second to Zidane. Zizou had 3 World Cup Final goals, a World Cup Semi Final goal, a Champions League Final goal, and 4 in the Champions League Semi finals for good measure. You can also add in a semi final goal in Euro 2000. Maradona on his part has 4 goals in 12 Copa America appearances, which is a long way off Platini’s record in the European equivalent.

So when people point to Messi and say that he can never be considered the greatest because he didn’t win any tournaments with average sides, then who did? If Messi’s Argentina team had the defence that Maradona had behind him, then there’s a good chance they would have gone a lot further in the last two World Cups. The fact that Messi has played his whole career at Barcelona is not a reason to discount his claim to being the greatest.

So there you have it, I’m not disputing his place with the greats, but I would think twice before using the old one man team argument.

Any Maradona fans looking for more, then this is a great site for rare footage of Diego in his prime: http://wn.com/Maradona_87

Cheers,

Liam

Player Comparison: Romario vs Ronaldo vs Rivaldo vs Ronaldinho vs Messi

From the early 90′s to the current team, Barcelona have relied heavily on the magic of their South American superstars. One club, two nationalities and five of the best players of all time. All won the World Player of the Year Award in their time with the Catalan club. But who performed most in the big games? And who was most important to the team? The fourth feature in the Player Comparison series compares those brilliant Barcelona boys – Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Messi.

 

The Contenders:

 

First up is Romario, the Brazilian marksman was a ruthless finisher, and one of only two players to have scored 1,000 career goals – depending on what you class as official (more on that one here). He played in 6 different countries for 10 different teams, including footballing giants Adelaide United, Miami FC and Al-Sadd. For Brazil, he scored an incredible 55 goals in 70 games, winning the World Cup and the Copa America (twice). Described by Johan Cruyff as a “genius of the goal area”, he won La Liga and the Spanish Super Copa during his time his short stay at Barcelona.

 

Ronaldo came next. And it was an even shorter stay. For the single season that he represented Barcelona, there were absolutely no doubts who the best player in the World was. Although he didn’t win the League title with the Spanish Club, he did win the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Cup Winners Cup, and despite later going on to play for bitter rivals Madrid, he is still considered one of the Barca greats. Like his predecessor, he also won the Two Copa Americas and a World Cup with Brazil – and is the tournaments all time top scorer with 15 goals. In total he scored 62 goals in 98 appearances for Brazil. He suffered three career threatening injuries, with many suggesting that without them, he could have been the best of all time. Despite this, he still managed to win the World Player of Year award on three occasions.

 

After Ronaldo’s sale to Inter Milan, Rivaldo was identified as the player to fill the “Brilliant Brazilian” hole that had been left behind. More of a playmaker than the two before him, he was still a prolific scorer, particularly in his 5 years with Barcelona. Deadly from set pieces, he also had the eye for the spectacular – none more so than his hat trick to beat Valencia on the final day of the season to pip them to the last Champions League spot in 2001. The third goal was an over head kick from outside of the area in the last minute (as seen here), and possibly better than Pele’s in escape to Victory. He had a left foot like a magic wand/traction engine, and like Ronaldo, he enjoyed his greatest moment in the 2002 World Cup, as part of the 3 R’s attack. As appears to be the pre requisite, he also won the Copa America, and scored 34 goals in 74 appearances. He’s had even more clubs than Romario, and at 39, is still playing.

 

Fourth in the list, was cheeky schemer Ronaldinho. As with Rivaldo, he was also more of a playmaker, one blessed with incredible dribbling skills. He is one of the few Barcelona players to have received a standing ovation from fans of Real Madrid in the Bernebeu. Although mainly deployed from wide positions, he has close to 300 career goals (stop laughing Romario) including the 33 for his country (from 93 caps). At 31, he is still strutting his stuff in the Brazilian league with Flamengo. He’s regarded by some as a wasted talent, but during his time with Barcelona he won two World Player of the Year awards. Not bad for an International Playboy (I met him once in Las Vegas – the reputation is justified). Ronaldinho’s partying and the emergence of another skillful playmaker resulted in a somewhat premature exit from the Nou Camp, after he signed for AC Milan (like Rivaldo and Ronaldo before him). As with the players above, he also has World Cup and Copa America medals.

 

And so on to the last and current Barca player in our list – Lionel Messi. He has the vision of Rivaldo, the dribbling of Ronaldinho, and the finishing and pace of Romario and Ronaldo. He, like Ronaldo has 3 World Player of the Year titles. Where he differs from his Brazilian predecessors (apart from his nationality) is that he’s been a one club man. He had to overcome similar physical challenges as Rivaldo before making it as a top class player. The undoubted best player in the World at the moment, he just has to do it on the International stage to truly cement his place as one of the best, if not the very best of all time. He currently has 222 goals in 309 games for his club (as at the time of writing), and a rather more modest 19 in 66 for Argentina.

“No hard feelings, I just want your Number 10″

 

Rules:

 

As per usual, it’s primarily a comparison of their Leauge goals rather than all goals. Why? Because it’s similar opposition (give or take for relegation) – and these opponents are ranked, meaning that we can calculate an average. As they played for different amounts of time for Barcelona, it’ll be a look at their most prolific season in the league. This is calculated on final league positions, rather than at the time of playing.

Of course these players aren’t just about goals, but I don’t have the assists available for Ronaldo and Romario, so will leave them out for this comparison.

 

Background:

 

Romario, then 27, signed in the summer of 1993 after 129 goals in just 5 seasons with PSV Eindhoven. Under the stewardship of Johan Cruyff, he had just one full season with the Spanish Giants, so we’ll be looking at the 1993-94 season.

 

Like Romario before him, Ronaldo made his European club bow with PSV, though only stayed for 2 seasons – his 54 goals in 57 games were enough to persuade Barca to part with $17m for a teenager. Under Bobby Robson, Ronaldo played just the one season with Barcelona – 1996-97.

 

Rivaldo joined aged 25, from La Liga rivals Deportivo La Coruna for a fee of $26m. Though he played for Barca for 5 seasons, it’s his most prolific that we’ll look at – 24 league goals in 1998-99. Free from the shackles placed upon him by Louis van Gaal in previous years, he thrived under Ferrer.

 

Ronaldinho’s most prolific season was actually after his two World Player of the Year awards. 2006-07 saw him bang in a decent 21 in the league in Frank Rijkaard’s penultimate season with the club.

 

And lastly, Messi’s best haul in La Liga was as a 22 year old. He looks set to have his best season in goal scoring terms this season, but for the purpose of this piece, we’ll use his prolific season under Pep Guardiola (Romario and Ronaldo’s team mate) in 2009-10. (this was written before his recored breaking 2011-12 season finished).

 

This was initially going to be about the 4 Brazilian’s, but you can’t leave Messi out of this. He fits the South American World Player of the Year criteria, and plays up top, so we’ll leave him in. Even though his name doesn’t begin with R and end with O.

 

 

Statistics:

 

Apologies for the long build up, but we can now move onto the stats. I’ve decided to look at it based on three criteria – goal scoring out right, big game players, and importance to the team.

 

Goalscoring:

 

First up is the the goal scoring records of each player – based on goals per game and goals per minute:

 

 

Firstly, Ronaldinho’s 21 goals in 32 games would be an incredible season in most players careers, and a rate of 0.66 goals per game is an awesome strike rate. When you add to that the fact that he played wide of a front three, then it’s even more impressive. However, this comparison is against some of the greatest and most prolific forwards of all time. Whilst Ronaldinho is perhaps only second to Messi in the dribbling stakes, he’s last in the goals table. Similarly, Rivaldo was more than just a goal scorer, so 24 league goals is a great season.

 

To put it into perspective, it would have won the golden boot 4 of the seasons from 1997-2004.

And so onto the super strikers. In all honesty, there’s not much in it. Ronaldo and Messi lead the way in terms of goals scored with 34 (Messi in two games less). Romario wasn’t too far behind with 30 league goals from just 33 games.

 

They all have close to a goal a game strike rate with 0.91, 0.92 and 0.97 goals per game for Romario, Ronaldo and Messi respectively. To add some perspective, in the last 20 years only 3 other players have broken the 30 goal mark in a season – Cristiano Ronaldo last season, Diego Forlan the year before that, and Pizzi for Tenerife back in 1996. Pizzi did so in a 42 game season (he played 41 games), and whilst Ronaldo also did so in a 42 game season, he only played 37 games – within the confines of a normal season now. It’s interesting to see that the 30 goal mark has been broken in the last 3 (soon to be 4) seasons. Is La Liga getting easier?

 

When looking at the goals per minute, it’s Messi once again that does this business with a goal every 83.53 minutes. That works out better than a goal a game, and when allowing for injury time at the end of both halves of football – Ronaldo and Romario pretty much equal that with goals every 94 and 91.9 minutes. In terms of games scored in, Ronaldo walks this one, with a massive 23. It’s up to you the reader to decide if it’s better to score in more games, or to score multiple times in fewer games. Ronaldo can certainly say his goals influenced more games than the other players.

 

Winner: It’s a joint win for Ronaldo and Messi on this one. Messi equalled Ronaldo’s 34 in less games/minutes, but Ronaldo did it in more games. It’s also easy to argue that Messi’s team mates were better than Ronaldo’s. Honourable mention to Romario.

 

Big Game Players:

 

And so on to round 2, and the lifeblood of this site – who was most effective in the big games? Once again, unfortunately I don’t have the assists available for each player – so whilst they may have dominated the game without scoring (see Messi vs Real Madrid in 2010/11), we’re solely looking at goals.

 

 

Well well well. I didn’t just put it together like this so that Ronaldinho and Rivaldo could prevent it from turning into a 2 horse race. It’s certainly interesting that the two Playmakers have the best average ranked opposition per goal. Even though they scored the least amount of goals, they had the mentality to perform in the big games – more so than the small games. They’re the only two on the list that have more goals against the Top 6 than the Bottom 6. It was certainly levelled at Ronaldinho that he didn’t always turn up for the small games (mentally not physically) – and this goes some way to proving it.

 

Big game? That’ll be Real Madrid. Interestingly, all 5 players scored against arch rivals Real Madrid in their Barca careers, though Ronaldinho didn’t manage it in his most prolific season (a young Messi did though). Romario banged in a hat trick in a 5-0 whitewash, Ronaldo scored the winner in a 1-0 win whilst chasing the Madrid club for the title, Rivaldo scored in a 3-0 win, and Messi scored in a 2-0 win at the Berbebeu.

Although Ronaldinho didn’t have the goal against Madrid, he did score against the teams in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. And this was a league table where 3rd placed Sevilla were only 5 points off the title, rather than the 24 points that Valencia are behind in today’s table.

 

Messi has the most goals against Top 6 opposition with 10, but this was in a league where 3rd placed Valencia finished 28 points behind the Champions, and 6th placed Getafe were 41 points off Top spot – whilst only 22 off relegation. The gap between 1st and 6th was only 16 points in Ronaldinho’s 2006-07 season – the lowest by someway – adding to the importance of Top 6 goals.

 

Ronaldo and Romario fall victim to being consistent with an expected split weighted towards the middle range, and it’s worth noting that Ronaldo’s goals against the Top 6 opposition were worth more points (6) than any of the others.

 

Winner:Although his star had started to fade, it was Ronaldinho’s big game mentality that shone through. He scored twice the amount of goals against Top 6 as he did against Bottom 6, had the best Average ranked opposition for each goal, and the league he played in was still very very competitive. The only he didn’t notch against Real, he did against all the other challengers.

 

 

Importance to team – goals as points:

 

The last measure is based on the importance of the goals. It’s not an exact science but it does give a basis to measure the importance of a goal. For the mathematics behind it, click on the Rules and Workings page. So if we take Romario’s hat trick against Real Madrid as an example, he’d receive zero points for his treble as the team won 5-0. If you take his goals away, then they’d still win 2-0. Similarly, Rivaldo’s hat trick against Valencia in 2001 was worth all 3 points as they were the only Barca goals in a 3-2 win. Take them out and the team lose 0-2. So with that in mind:

 

 

Despite scoring less goals than Romario, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, it’s Rivaldo who’s goals were most important to his team. His 24 goals were woth a massive 20 points to Barcelona’s final tally of 79. This means that he also leads the way in the percentage of team points he was responsible for, with a mightily impressive 25.32. Barcelona went on to win the title that year and usually you’d expect the Champions points spread quite wide across a team. It’s not unusual to see a struggling team have a stand out player for points, as the team points is that much lower, so to score goals worth a quarter of the final tally is very impressive.

Ronaldo once again is there are there abouts. His 34 league goals were worth 17 points as Bobby Robson’s team just missed out on the title by 2 points to Real Madrid. If he’d played all the games, it’s likely that he would have made the difference. He edges out his predecessor Romario who had a credible 16 points.

Surprisingly enough, Messi and Ronaldinho’s goals were only worth 13 points – 13.13% and 16.67% of the the over all points tally.

 

Although they were less important that the other players, Messi is ahead on the percentage of the team goals scored with 34.69% – narrowly ahead of Ronaldo and Romario.

 

Winner:This one has to go to Rivaldo. Whilst he scored less goals than than 3 of the other contendors, the goals he did score were worth more to his team. Honourable mention to Ronaldo who won 17 points, and scored a third of his teams goals.

 

Overall Winner:

 

With wins for each player (aside from Romario) across the three categories, it’s incredibly hard to call this one. Each reader will have their own opinion as to which parameter is most important. Some may well argue that stats don’t tell the whole story – and i’d agree to an extent, as there is no measurement on assists, on brilliance, beauty, style etc…..Personally, Ronaldo is my favourite footballer of all time, regardless of the stats, but regular readers will no that I don’t like to sit on the fence, nor let my preconceptions shape the outcome.

As a result, I decided to rank the players on each measurement and work out the average position. And so, without further ado, I give you:

 

 

 

Overall Winner:

 

 

Well it looks like Messi has done it again. Taking into account every single parameter, he just edges out Ronaldo with a average rank of 2.4 across the 10 measurements, with Ronaldo averaging 2.5. It’s no surprise that the order is the same as the number of goals scored.

 

Whilst he appears set to be crowned Barcelona’s all time greatest player – and 3 Champions League titles of their 4 would suggest it’s justified, it’s worth noting that Ronaldo’s 34 league goals (and 47 overall) came when he was just 19 years old. Messi’s season at 19 read played 26, scored 14 (17 in 36 overall). So whilst Messi is the winner here, i’d stick my neck out and say that had Ronaldo stayed at Barcelona, and avoided injuries, then he would have won.

 

Interestingly, if you remove the percentage of team goals statistic, then Messi and Ronaldo are level.

 

In Conclusion:

 

All five players were among the best of their generation, and arguably of all time. It’s a shame that Romario and Ronaldo’s stay was so short as they both had their best seasons with the club, and it meant that the comparison was restricted to just one season per player.

 

Whilst Messi tops the league in this comparison, he still falls short on the international stage. The four Brazilians have World Cup and Copa America glory, and until Messi wins big and performs well on the biggest stage, there will still be some doubting his place on the football pantheon, alongside Pele, Maradona and Zidane. I would also put Ronaldo on that list. He’s the all time top scorer in the World Cup, he’s the three time World Player of the year, and he had to overcome three career threatening injuries resulting in having to change his game. A good piece of trivia is that he is the only player to have scored on both sides of the Clasico and the Milan derbies. Ronaldo aged 17-21 is one of the greatest players of all time, and better than Messi at the same age.

 

Luckily for Messi, there were no measurements based on partying.

 

Further Viewing:

 

Enjoy:

 

Romario 1993/94

Ronaldo 1996/97 Top 10 (The top 3 are ridiculous)

Ronaldo 1996/97 All Goals

Rivaldo 1998/99

Ronaldinho 2006/07

Messi 2009/10

 

Apologies for the length of this one, but with five players (and five of the all time best), it’s hard to keep the word count down. Make up your own mind who you think was best for Barca. The stats say Messi, my own personal choice is Ronaldo, but it differs for everyone. I hope you enjoyed the latest Player Comparison, and as always, all suggestions are welcome. Whether you want an in depth anaysis, or are just wondering about the stats of a few players to settle a pub argument.

 

Cheers,

 

Liam

Player Comparison: Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo 2009-2011

This post first appeared on 16/12/2011

Inspired by the recent el Clasico, I thought now would be a good time to have the first Average Opposition Index player comparison. And who better to start with than the undoubted best players in the world. I’ll leave out Carlton Cole for the time being as he’s not playing in the same league (yet).

Contenders:

Barcelona and Argentina’s Leo Messi, the current World Player of the year vs former World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid and Portugal. Both play as Forwards – whether that be down the middle or from wide, both are generally part of a front 3.
Rules:

As usual, I won’t be including European Champions League Average Opposition as these are not ranked in the same competition, instead I’ll include La Liga games only from the last two completed seasons – 2009-10 and 2010-11. I’ll also compare their international goal record from an Average Opposition Index perspective.

La Liga:

From when Cristiano Ronaldo finally made his long anticipated move to Real Madrid in 2009, all eyes were on the show down between him and the existing king of La Liga – Leo Messi. By way of comparison, in the two seasons in question, Messi made 68 appearances in the league compared to Ronaldo’s 63. In those appearances, Messi scored a mind boggling 65 league goals compared to the even more impressive 66 by Ronaldo. In terms of scoring alone, Ronaldo has a strike rate of 1.05 goals per game, compared to Messi’s 0.96.

La Liga 2009-2010:

Surprisingly, Ronaldo wasn’t even Real Madrid’s top league scorer in the 2009-10 season, with Gonzalo Higuain scoring 27 to his 26 goals. However, due to an injury ravaged season last year, Higuain’s record doesn’t stand up to comparison. And so on to the Stats:

The 2009-10 season was Ronaldo’s first in a new league. With that in mind, his record of 26 goals from 29 appearances is phenomenal. Unfortunately for him, this is a comparison against Leo Messi. Messi’s 34 goals in just 35 appearances is even more impressive. Based on the Average Opponent per Goal at the time, Messi’s 10.50 is exactly where you’d expect a player to be and shows his high performance against all opposition. This is emphasised by the ranges of opposition he has scored against. 10 goals against the other 5 teams in the Top 6 excluding his own is a great achievement and inline with the other stats above. This includes a hat trick against 3rd placed Valencia and a double vs Sevilla (5th).

Ronaldo by comparison had an Average Opponent per Goal of 12.38 based on their position at the start of each round. Looking at his ranges, again, there is a good split between Top/Bottom 6 and also the majority in the Middle 8 is where we’d expect to see this. Where Ronaldo falls behind is that he’s 3 goals behind Messi vs Top 6 opposition, and 4 of his 26 goals were from the spot, compared to just one of Messi’s. Both scored in a similar number of games where comparing the Average Opposition Index for the final league positions, although Ronaldo’s increases to 11.85, Messi’s is still better despite it decreasing to 11.18. At the time of play and at the end of the season Messi did it against harder opposition, and more often.

Winner: Leo Messi

Unsurprisingly, Messi who had been playing in La Liga for 5 previous seasons won this fight on all fronts.

La Liga 2010-2011:

So with a season of La Liga experience behind him, Ronaldo and his team mates targeted Messi and the Barca boys, and this time they had Jose Mourinho calling the shots. Despite his reputation for defensive football, Mourinho’s teams have often been record breakers in goals scored and points collected. Ronaldo especially thrived under his stewardship, along with two important other factors – he was now the main man at the Bernebeu after Raul’s exit, and he was also being supplied by Di Maria and Ozil. For Messi, he also had a change in his forward partners with Ibrahimovic and Henry leaving, replaced by Villa and youth
product Pedro. And so onto the stats once more:

First and foremost, in a similar number of appearances, Ronaldo outscored Messi by a whopping 9 goals – take out each players penalties and there’s still 5 goals in it. In terms of the Average Opposition both were close enough to the expected 10.5 mark. However, where Ronaldo really shines is in the Top 6 goals. Of his 40 league goals (41 if you read Marca – the Madrid based and in no way biased sports paper), a massive 16 were against other members of the Top 6 including a four away at Sevilla, and a hat trick at home against Villarreal – one of 6 hat tricks scored in the season. It was against other members of the Top 6 that splits the two players – although Messi does come out on top in the number of games scored in.

However, what the stats don’t tell is that 3rd-6th were a long way behind the big two. Valencia, who finished in 3rd were 21 points behind 2nd placed Madrid, whilst 4th placed Villarreal were 30 points behind. Towards the end of the season when it was clear that Barca were going to win the league, the Madrid players were going out of their way to provide for Ronaldo – he scored 11 in his last 4 games. In that same period, Barcelona had one eye on the Champions League final and Messi didn’t score one goal. Upto that point in the season, Messi was actually ahead of Ronaldo in the scoring charts.

Though we should give credit where it’s due – 11 goals in 4 games in itself is an incredible achievement. Boosted by his late flourish, Ronaldo beats Messi in all but the number of games scored in.

Winner: Cristiano Ronaldo

La Liga 2009-2011:

So looking at their league performances in the two full seasons they’ve played in the same competition:

There’s one goal in it in Ronaldo’s favour, though he has scored 7 penalties more than his rival. Messi is ahead in games scored in and has an Average Opposition per goal of 10.63 compared to Ronaldo’s 11.38. Ronaldo is ahead on goals against the Top 6 whereas Messi trumps him in the other ranges. With the closeness in the goal scoring stakes, when looking for a winner and without wanting to sit on the fence it’s worth looking at some further factors.

With the rest of the opposition so far behind Real Madrid and Barcelona, a better indicator than just looking at the Top 6 goals is the goals in the head to head games. In the four league games played, Messi has two goals compared to Ronaldo’s one. Something that continues to be levelled at Ronaldo is that he rarely performs well in the el Clasico’s. Even in last week’s game, he missed two good chances, and also neglected to pass to team mates in better positions. In the games last season, both scored a penalty in a 1-1 draw in Madrid, whilst in the first game in Barcelona, Messi was outstanding, laying on rather than scoring goals for his team mates in a 5-0 win. And it’s Messi’s ability to create that gives him the edge. Last season saw Messi top the assist league table with 18 compared to Ronaldo’s 10. Going back to 2009-10 season and it was a similar story – Messi leading Ronaldo.

So with that in mind, the Winner is Leo Messi.

Internationals:

For their countries, it’s a similar story – albeit the gaps are wider. Whilst Ronaldo has scored 32 goals in 87 appearances for Portugal (0.37 goals per game), Messi has scored 19 in 66 (0.29 goals per game). However, when comparing the Average Opposition per goal there’s little room for debate. Messi has scored on two occasions against #1 Spain, and also against Argentina’s fierce rivals Brazil. The worst opposition he’s scored against as per the FIFA Rankings at the time of play is Algeria #67. Interestingly, when the two nations faced each other in February of this year, both scored in a 2-1 win for Argentina but crucially, Messi also got an assist.

Both failed to impose themselves on the 2010 World Cup - one of the few criticisms that can be levelled at them. Messi’s solitary World Cup goal being in the 6-0 win over Serbia & Montenegro in a game famous for Cambiasso’s team goal back in 2006. Ronaldo scored in 2010, but it was against North Korea – ranked 105th in the World. This was in addition to his 2006 World Cup goal against Iran. For Ronaldo’s 2 goals in the European Championships (2004) see Messi’s 2 goals for Argentina in the 2007 Copa America.

In Conclusion:

Looking at just the stats, it’s difficult to separate the two players in the comparisons available. What can be agreed is that both players still need to do more at International level – especially in a World Cup, but as both are in their Mid-20s and with a World Cup less than 3 years away, they should both have the chance to do so.

Taking into account the goals against each other and the assists that Messi provides, the argument up until now falls in Messi’s favour. Both are outstanding players, but you can use the recent Real Madrid v Barcelona game as a microcosm of their rivalry. Take away Ronaldo’s goals and there’s not much else on offer, whereas Messi created the first goal after picking up the ball from his Centre Back, beating 4 men, and playing a perfect pass through for Sanchez to score. It was a similar story in the 5-0 win last season – Messi didn’t score but was man of the match.

Ronaldo is a modern great – a former World Player of the year, a scorer in a Champions League final, and the winner of the Golden boot in two strong leagues and in the Champions League.
But he’s not Messi.

Both have 17 league goals this season, as this intriguing head to head continues. Both can count themselves unlucky that they’re playing at the same time as another 50+ goal a season forward (in all competitions), but it’s great for the neutral. Messi is ahead due to his all round game, but it’s far from over.

I’ll revisit this at the end of the season. I came into this expecting a clear win for Messi, but the fact that it was assists that separates them says a lot for the rivalry.

Cheers,

Liam