Since scoring five goals for Barcelona against Bayern Leverkusen in midweek, debates have been circulating around the football fraternity discussing just how good Lionel Messi really is.
Is the diminutive Argentinean the best footballer ever to grace the beautiful game?
Some say Pele. Some say Maradona. Some say George Best. It’s clearly a matter of opinion.
But Sport-locker.net can today put all this to bed and definitely say that Messi is currently the world’s best!
(Hardly earth-shattering we know…)
That’s because the Castrol EDGE Rankings confirm Pep Guardiola’s claim that “Messi’s the best, there’s no one else. He’s unique”.
Messi (1st) continues to dominate the Castrol EDGE Rankings ahead of his rival attackers.
This season, Messi has scored an incredible 40 goals in 31 La Liga and Champions League appearances at an average of a goal every 68 minutes.
This is considerably better than Cristiano Ronaldo (6th), who has scored 34 goals in 30 games at an average of a goal every 78 minutes. Messi also has 13 assists to his name – four more than Ronaldo and Karim Benzema (3rd) and five more than Robin van Persie (4th).
While Messi is generally considered peerless, Mario Gomez (2nd) remains the only player to rival him in the scoring department, with his 24 goals coming with a 69.5% shooting accuracy (superior to Messi’s 68.7%) and a 29.3% chance conversion rate (only marginally behind Messi’s 29.9%). Aside from this and average minutes per shot (where he sits behind Cristiano Ronaldo), the Argentine genius outdoes his rivals in every department.
Top 6 players in Castrol EDGE Rankings – League/Champions League data 2011/12
In the Premier League, Edin Dzeko (5th) continues on his way up the Rankings. The Bosnian striker had his fair share of doubters after his first six months with Manchester City.
However, he has kicked on this season and currently boasts a better minutes per goal ratio than Premier League top scorer Robin van Persie. Dzeko has found the net every 96 minutes in the league and Champions League this season, compared to 98 minutes for the Dutchman.
However, van Persie is a more complete player, having delivered eight assists for his teammates this season as opposed to three for the Bosnian striker, despite Dzeko creating a chance every 39 minutes compared to van Persie’s 41.
Castrol EDGE Rankings – Top Ten Performing Players
So Messi is clearly the best in the world at the minute, but is he the best ever to play the beautiful game? Let us know via the comments section below or on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
SportLocker 
I have been surfing online more than three hours these
days, yet I by no means found any fascinating article like
yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. In my opinion, if all
site owners and bloggers made just right content material as you did, the internet will likely be a lot more helpful than ever before.
My spouse and I stumbled over here different web page and
thought I might check things out. I like what I see so
now i am following you. Look forward to checking out your web page for a
second time.