Importantly, turnovers in soccer aren’t as big of a deal as Fut 15 Coins are in basketball or American football. Shots, even bad ones, are more of a limited resource in soccer than possessions. Risking a turnover to increase your chances of scoring a goal even by a small amount can be worth it.

Finally, Messi’s defense is consistent with that of a high-volume striker.15That he’s practically munchkin-sized (he’s only 1.69 met — ahem, excuse me — 5’ 7” tall) seems not to matter.

To look at Messi’s defensive skill, I combined successful tackles,16interceptions and blocked shots, then adjusted for number of opponent possessions (as I did with offense above).

There are a few lines where Messi’s stats are considerably worse than his peers’ (meaning Ronaldo’s): He doesn’t get a lot of clearances — although this is partly style, as Messi is more willing to pass out of defensive territory (or even take on defenders). And he doesn’t go for (or succeed at) a lot of aerials (50-50 balls in the air). While I haven’t studied this aspect of his game in depth, soccer experts in the FiveThirtyEight office theorize that it has something to do with his stature.

CONCLUSION

How should Argentina fans feel about all this, given the disappointment they’ve experienced in FIFA Coins PS3 past and the hopes they’ve pinned on Messi this year? So far in the 2014 tournament, Messi has been erasing whatever gap there was between his Barcelona stats and his Argentina stats, with style. And that gap was never really as big as it appeared.