Ranking the 5 most lethal finishers in world football since 2014/15 using data analytics

#1 Lionel Messi – Net onpxG Per 90 - 0.223

Barcelona v Real Madrid - La Liga

It had to be him. Arguably the best player to have ever played this game, Lionel Messi is in a league of his own. 2nd placed Griezmann, who is now his teammate, is far behind with a Net onpxG Per 90 of 0.148. It’s not that Griezmann’s stats are bad, they’re not, but no one even comes close to Messi. In all probability, no one ever will.

Even an assembled monster called Barcelona hasn’t been able to keep up with his excellence. I say this because, since the 2014/15 season, Messi should have an xA or expected Assists count of 83.9 assists (just like expected goals, there is a metric called expected assists - video link) but ended up with 'just' 74. Put another way, even Barcelona players are finding it hard to keep up with him.

He has scored 167 non-penalty goals in the same timeframe, Suarez and Ronaldo come in 2nd with 132 goals each. Most of what Barcelona does well goes through this footballing freak. He takes an average 5.36 shots Per 90, the 2nd most Per 90 by any player but these numbers are little inflated because he’s also on free-kick duty for his club (213 out of his 936 shots were from free-kicks and he's scored a maddening 24 free-kicks from his 213 shots).

He has 461 key passes to his name, the most by any player, again. The list can go on and on, but with regards to this curated list (and most others), Messi comes in at 1st with 167 np goals even though his npxG put him at 'only' 128. The difference is of 39 goals. 39 goals over almost 5 and a half seasons. That means, only by virtue of his extraordinary finishing, Messi contributes 7 more goals, per season, than any player in his boots should ideally have.

P.S. There could be a much better way to measure just how clinical a player is in front of goal, but this seemed like a good one considering the data I could get access to. If anyone does have another metric in mind, please do let me know and I’ll try compiling a list with that stat in mind.

Sources: www.understat.com