Sport · chart insight

Messi won 159 take-ons in 2017/18

Messi led the full 2,568-player cohort with 159 strict Wyscout take-ons won from 209 attempts, a 76.1% win rate. Neymar’s 108 wins were the next-highest total in the five domestic leagues in 2017/18.

Men’s Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1, 2017/18. Top ten by strict take-ons won from all 2,568 player IDs; 2,163 players attempted at least one.Fixed source: Events, version 1

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Ranked bars for strict Wyscout take-ons won in five men’s domestic leagues, 2017/18. Messi leads with 159 wins from 209 attempts, 76.1%; Neymar follows with 108 from 152, 71.1%. The top ten are selected from all 2,568 players. Bar lengths show wins, with attempts and observed rates alongside.
Ranked bars for strict Wyscout take-ons won in five men’s domestic leagues, 2017/18. Messi leads with 159 wins from 209 attempts, 76.1%; Neymar follows with 108 from 152, 71.1%. The top ten are selected from all 2,568 players. Bar lengths show wins, with attempts and observed rates alongside. Permanent insight link. Original chart.

What the chart shows

Messi’s lead over Neymar was 51 wins: 159 minus 108. That is a season-total lead, not a claim that he had the highest win percentage. Among the displayed players, Harit won 87 of 107 attempts (81.3%) and Ndombèlé 86 of 101 (85.1%), both higher observed rates than Messi’s 76.1%. Messi and Neymar also had different exposure: 36 and 20 appearances with recorded events.

Messi’s denominator retains every outcome: 209 attempts = 159 won + nine neutral + 41 lost. The 50 attempts not won include those nine neutral outcomes, so they must not all be called losses. Using the accurate tag instead of the won tag would count 168 events and answer a different question.

  • Messi: 159 won / 209 attempts (76.1%).
  • Neymar: 108 won / 152 attempts (71.1%).
  • Zaha: 102 won / 170 attempts (60.0%).
  • Harit: 87 won / 107 attempts (81.3%).
  • Ndombèlé: 86 won / 101 attempts (85.1%).
  • Lazzari: 84 won / 128 attempts (65.6%).
  • Pulisic: 77 won / 133 attempts (57.9%).
  • Gradel: 76 won / 130 attempts (58.5%).
  • Januzaj: 72 won / 123 attempts (58.5%).
  • Hazard: 71 won / 103 attempts (68.9%).

Men’s Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1, 2017/18. Top ten by strict take-ons won from all 2,568 player IDs; 2,163 players attempted at least one.

How it was made

Use the strict legacy Wyscout predicate: an attempt is subEventId 11, Ground attacking duel, with either take-on-left tag 503 or take-on-right tag 504. A win requires tag 703. Neutral tag 702 and lost tag 701 remain separate outcomes. Accurate tag 1801 is not substituted for won tag 703.

Aggregate by nonzero player ID across all 1,826 men’s domestic-league matches in the five competitions, combining cross-league transfers. Rank the full 2,568-player cohort by take-ons won without a minimum-minute or attempt threshold, and display the ten highest totals. The cutoff is unambiguous: Hazard has 71 wins, while the next players have 70.

Calculate the displayed win rate as wins divided by attempts times 100, rounded once to one decimal: 159 / 209 × 100 = 76.1%. Bar lengths show wins on a common zero baseline; attempts and rates appear beside them. The bars have no stacked not-won remainder.

The retained 209-event Messi audit supplies IDs, tags and outcome flags, but no subtype column. The subtype-11 condition is established in the supplied recount code and upstream validation. This page reconciles the supplied aggregate and selected event audit; it does not claim a new recount of the full raw-event archive.

Read the complete source & method notes

Definitions & limits

  • These are strict take-ons won, not all dribbles or all attacking duels. Other providers or event definitions can produce different denominators.
  • The full cohort includes 405 players with no attempted take-on. The chart shows its top ten, with no minimum-minute or attempt threshold and no tie at the cutoff.
  • The five-league coverage has 380 matches each in England, Spain, Italy and France, and 306 in Germany. Cups, European competition and national teams are excluded.
  • Counts reflect opportunity and playing time. They are not adjusted for minutes, possession, role, opponents or league strength; this is not a per-90 ranking or proof of underlying skill.
  • Messi leads the wins total, not every observed win rate. The finding is confined to the fixed 2017/18 cohort and makes no current-form, career or all-time claim.

Original sources & reuse

Data: Wyscout / Pappalardo & Massucco (2019), Figshare, CC BY 4.0. Data paper: Pappalardo et al. (2019).

Meplar filtered the five domestic leagues to the strict take-on event/tag predicate, combined player IDs across leagues, aggregated outcomes, ranked by wins, calculated observed win rates, shortened display names and visualized the top ten with the full comparator cohort available. No source endorsement is implied.

This analysis uses the fixed Events version 1 release. A source retrieval date is not documented for this page. The checks reconcile supplied derivative tables and selected event audits; they do not constitute a new audit of the full raw event archive.

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