Barcelona’s Argentine maestro produced another magical Camp Nou moment over the weekend, bagging a sublime free-kick as his side recorded yet another La Liga victory while keeping their unbeaten league record in tact.
But while Messi is a deadball specialist, he’s not featured in the best free-kick takers.
STATS have crunched the all-important numbers on every FK taker around Europe since the start of the 2013/14 season.
Also, it’s current players who must’ve had at least 20 attempts on goal from a free-kick.
Here’s their findings:
20. Suso (AC Milan)
Goals: 3 – Attempts: 22 – Success rate: 13.64%
20. Gael Kakuta (Amiens)
Goals: 3 – Attempts: 22 – Success rate: 13.64%
20. Wissam Ben Yedder (Sevilla)
Goals: 3 – Attempts: 22 – Success rate: 13.64%
17. Wayne Rooney (Everton)
Goals: 4 – Attempts: 29 – Success rate: 13.79%
16. Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United)
Goals: 3 – Attempts: 21 – Success rate: 14.29%
15. Yaya Toure (Manchester City)
Goals: 4 – Attempts: 28 – Success rate: 14.29%
14. Zlatko Junuzovic (Werder Bremen)
Goals: 5 – Attempts: 35 – Success rate: 14.29%
13. David Alaba (Bayern Munich)
Goals: 6 – Attempts: 42 – Success rate: 14.29%
12. Miralem Pjanic (Juventus)
Goals: 11 – Attempts: 76 – Success rate: 14.47%
11. Markus Suttner (Brighton)
Goals: 4 – Attempts: 27 – Success rate: 14.81%
10. Mauricio Lemos (Sassuolo)
Goals: 3 – Attempts: 20 – Success rate: 15%
10. Henri Saivet (Newcastle)
Goals: 3 – Attempts: 20 – Success rate: 15%
10. Sejad Salihovic (Hamburg)
Goals: 3 – Attempts: 20 – Success rate: 15%
7. Marvin Plattenhardt (Hertha Berlin)
Goals: 6 – Attempts: 37 – Success rate: 16.22%
6. Federico Viviani (SPAL)
Goals: 5 – Attempts: 30 – Success rate: 16.67%
5. James Rodriguez (Bayern Munich)
Goals: 6 – Attempts: 36 – Success rate: 16.67%
4. Marcos Alonso (Chelsea)
Goals: 4 – Attempts: 22 – Success rate: 18.18%
3. Philippe Coutinho (Barcelona)
Goals: 5 – Attempts: 26 – Success rate: 19.23%
2. Paulo Dybala (Juventus)
Goals: 8 – Attempts: 38 – Success rate: 21.05%
1. Juan Mata (Manchester United)
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