Lionel Messi News: One incredible stat that shows how overdependent Barcelona are on Messi
What's the story?
Lionel Messi and Barcelona succumbed to a surprise defeat at the hands of Valencia in Saturday's Copa del Rey final. This, combined with the defeat to Liverpool in the Champions League semi-finals has heaped pressure on the Barcelona management to fire coach Ernesto Valverde, despite winning his second consecutive La Liga title with the Blaugrana.
Messi's usage rate statistic for the Copa final is an astonishing 30.83%, meaning 31% of Barcelona's passes went through their talismanic captain, showing how dependent the Spanish champions have become on him under Valverde.
In case you didn't know...
Ever since Neymar left for Paris Saint Germain in 2017, Barcelona have struggled to find a replacement for him as a secondary creative source in their attack to complement Messi. His departure coincided with former Athletic Bilbao boss Ernesto Valverde taking over the reins at Camp Nou from Luis Enrique.
A more pragmatic coach than Enrique or Pep Guardiola, he has developed a solid system that produces results over long league seasons but crumbles under the pressure of Champions League and Cup knockout matches and finals.
The manager can't be blamed alone since the signings made to replace Neymar haven't born fruit. Philippe Coutinho has been a disaster this season while Ousmane Dembele has been inconsistent and subject to frequent injuries.
Once one of the most creative midfielders in the squad, Ivan Rakitic has declined to a shadow of himself, playing a deeper and more defensive role under Valverde. On the long term, Barcelona are yet to find proper replacement for playmakers Xavi or Iniesta to reduce the creative burden on Messi.
The heart of the matter
According to stats from Whoscored.com, Messi has the second highest Player goals to team goals contribution in Europe's top 5 leagues this season - an incredible 40%. It is only topped by Sampdoria's Fabio Quagliarella (45%) but that is understandable since the Italian veteran is not playing for a top side.
Messi is way ahead of Paris Saint Germain's Kylian Mbappe (31%), Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (30%) and Liverpool's Mohammed Salah (30%) who are other players from Europe's top teams to make the top 10.
After having seen Messi's incredible goal contribution for Barcelona, let's come to contribution in terms of passing and buildup. According to Football stats website StatsBomb, a player's usage rate is the ratio of the players passes per 90 minutes to the team's total passes per 90 minutes, giving a true picture of how much influence a player has in the team's buildup play.
Messi scored an incredible 31% usage rate in the Copa del Rey final, one of the highest values the stat has recorded ever since its development, going to show how increasingly dependent Barcelona as a club have become on their talismanic captain.
Even Lionel Messi cannot perform in every game and unless Barcelona bring in some top-draw players like Luka Jovic and/or Antoine Griezmann they cannot hope for Champions League glory next season.
What's next?
Barcelona head to Japan for a pre-season friendly in July. They are set to face English giants Chelsea on July 27th in Saitama.