Which Football Player Bears Most Resemblance to Messi? A Statistical Analysis

TL;DR

This study uses statistical analysis of detailed football performance data to identify which player most closely resembles Lionel Messi in playing style and performance.

Contribution

It introduces a method to quantify player similarity using normalized data and metrics, specifically identifying the most Messi-like player among top European league attackers.

Findings

Most similar player to Messi identified through data analysis.

Uses 17 performance parameters for comparison.

Provides a new approach for player similarity assessment.

Abstract

Many pundits and fans ask themselves the same question: Which football player bears most resemblance to Lionel Messi? Is it Chelsea's Eden Hazard? Is it Paulo Dybala, the heir to Messi in the national team of Argentina? Or is the most alike player to Messi someone completely else? In general, the research on the evaluation of players' performances originated in the context of baseball in the USA, but, currently, it is of great importance in almost every team sport on the planet. Specifically, football clubs' managers can use the data on player's similarity when looking for replacement of their players by other, presumably similar ones. Also, the research in the presented direction is certainly interesting both for football pundits and football fans. Therefore, the aim of this study is to answer the question from the title with the use of the statistical analysis based on the data from ongoing league season retrieved from WhoScored (WS) database. WS provides detailed data (up to 24 parameters such as goals scored, the number of assists, shots on goal, passes, dribbles or fouls) for players of TOP 5 European leagues, and ranks them with respect to their overall performance. For this study, 17 parameters (criteria) most relevant for an attacking player were used, and a set of 28 players, candidates to be 'most alike to Messi' from WS TOP 100 list were selected. After data normalization and application of a proper metric function the most similar player to Lionel Messi was found.