The inevitable comparison – deflector shields to maximum, social media mentions muted – is with Ronaldo, who is the star to an even greater degree with Portugal. And despite not running much, he still has more runs into the attacking third than anyone else. Messi is still top of the dribble charts with 15. Despite playing only one game Messi still has four more World Cup 2018 shots than the next player on the list, Denis Cheryshev.
These were mainly shooting and dribbling. On the flipside the things Messi did he did a lot of. Messi’s top speed is 25kph, slower than David Silva, Andrés Iniesta and even Sergio Busquets. The quickest player at the World Cup so far is Cristiano Ronaldo who clocked 34kph against Spain, perhaps while he was running off to celebrate one of his goals. The word “sprint” is used advisedly here. But in that time even the most gifted of World Cup winners has tended to show some degree of urgency.Īgainst Iceland Messi made 17 sprints, half as many as Philippe Coutinho and Mesut Özil in their opening games.
Run more, move more: it is an English footballing obsession, a recipe for success that has harvested precisely zero World Cups over the past 50 years.
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