The TRUTH about the Eye Test vs Stats Debate

I was with you until you started trashing Pogba. Best midfielder of his generation. He just made horrible career decisions club-wise, playing for the wrong teams at the wrong time (not unlike Neymar and Mbappé)

Stats can be really really accurate, but the trick is looking at the correct stats. Stats that are more granular than goals and assists. You'd need to score all the stats live to have access to that info

Muller always impressed me on how calm he would stay with the ball in the opponent's half, he was like a offensive playing Busquets, top class CAM!!

Talking of Busquest, I noticed him in 2010. There was match Barcelona was loosing and i was like wait, someone is missing in the mid field!?. And it was Busquest. That guy was a weapon

But Harry Maguire is better than VVD

Modern fans are so boring, they get more excited over a calculator than the game itself.

Well obviously the best thing to do is a combination between eye test and statistics. However if you use plain statistics as an example in the video, specific the big chances missed, that’s not how statistics are meant to be used and you’re making a bad example. If you want to look at someone’s finishing with big chances missed you need to put them into perspective with how many they scored. 34 missed out of 70 is clearly better than 27 missed out of 40 for example. Also there’s statistics about average shooting distance, shot conversion, xG and xG over/underperformance and more. Those are actual statistics to look at.

it's scary that Messi had a great stats and play beautiful.

Meanwhile Messi Eyetest or Stats : I am the no 1

While there is no doubt, even though Ronaldo won a Balon D’or in the hardest league in the world 03-09 as a winger and dribbler in the peak PL defensive era, Messi is the GOAT dribbler of all time, and we must respect both as players.

BUT, let us look at the REAL stats in context and it might just shock you:



Ronaldo transformed and made a conscious decision to focus on other parts of his game to try to win games for the team, and transformed himself from a skilful winger that took on 2,3,4,5 players to an out and out attacker, but a knee injury in mid 2014 accelerated this transformation. However, when it comes to deciding who is the GOAT, there is a lot of disrespect on both sides, a lot of opinions thrown from both sides, and i propose we formulate an objective stat-in context of what makes a player a GOAT in any sport:

1. Who has shown they are the best at performing the one thing that wins you the game in that sport i.e. goals, and assists will factor in lesser but be key.
2. Who has proven they are able to perform goals + assists and make the biggest impact in the most elite competition Champions League knock out rounds across their entire careers. Yes, assists are part of the debate.
3. How did each of them do when they each played together in Spain in La Liga G + A , over all, and in away games while in La Liga
4. How did each perform after they left Spain , Messi to PSG, Ronaldo to Juventus - a major test in the GOAT debate, being able to do it anywhere any in any system.
5. In terms of dribbling as forwards who is more efficient , rather than simply a better pure dribbler i.e. dribbling leading to a chance or goal, and what are the dispossession stats of each player?
6. In terms of pure athleticism in the sport, has any player shown stand out qualities i.e. world records in athletic feats, proportion of free kicks > 30 yards etc.
7. In terms of their all-around qualities, how complete are they I.e. both footed, speed, goal distribution


Ronaldo at Juventus
98 league games, 81 goals + 16 assists = 97 G+A.
Ronaldo was involved (goal or assist) in 97 / 223 ≈ 43.5% of all Juve league goals.

Ronaldo became the first Juventus players in 10 years to pick up the Golden boot in a highly defensive league - look at his impact. He didn't even start playing there as an out and out striker. He truly was a genius both on and off-the ball to adapt so quickly to so many leagues, reading games and scanning the pitch with insane intelligence.

Messi at PSG
58 league games, 22 goals + 30 assists = 52 G+A.
Messi was involved in 52 / 179 ≈ 29% of PSG’s league goals.

Messi was not playing midfield, he was playing in a front three on the right, and not as a midfielder. His position was not dramatically different to Barcelona, and often he was played as a false 9 with M'bappe and Neymar with him, significantly better players in a weak league.

Champions League knock-out round goal contributions? (Although Ronaldo has the highest number of goals, and the most assists in CL history)

Ronaldo 67 G + 15 A in 85 games → 0.79 G/game, 92 mins per G+A.

Messi 49 G + 12 A in 77 games → 0.64 G/game, 109 mins per G+A

What about the record of UCL goals and assists in a single season?

In 2013/14, Ronaldo scored 17 goals (most ever scored a season) and had 5 assists (joint most that season) to make a G + A total of 22 goal contributions, the most ever scored by a player ever in history.

What about dribbling that led to a shot or a chance i.e. end product between 2012-2022 between Messi and Ronaldo?

Ronaldo : 145 of 977 take‑ons led to a shot or chance → 14.8%.
Messi : 287 of 2,586 take‑ons leading to a shot or chance→ 11.1%.

Dispossession stats in La-Liga

Messi: 5,764 possessions lost in 301 league matches
Ronaldo: 2875 in 265 league matches.

While Messi no doubt takes on more players, and Ronaldo went from a winger and pure dribbler to goal scorer across his career, Messi is the most dispossessed players in La Liga. I was actually shocked to see that stat.

What about in La Liga 2009-2018 while both were in it? Remember, Messi grew up in this league, had a better team, same system while Ronaldo had to adapt.

Ronaldo: Goals per game: 1.07 , assist per game 0.30

Messi: Goals per game: 1.06 , assists per game 0.39*

Remember, Messi from 08-12 had a Barcelona prime midfield i.e. Xavi, Iniesta, Busquests who played for 95% average of Spain winning the Euro 2008, WC 2010, Euro 2012. He should have destroyed Ronaldo in these stats.

Messi vs Ronaldo Away goals/game La Liga
Messi: 0.88
Ronaldo: 0.94

Messi vs Ronaldo: Away assists/game La Liga
Messi: 0.18
Ronaldo: 0.13

Total away goal contributions (G+A) per game In La Liga when both played at the same time 2009-2018 in AWAY games - a key metric

Messi: (138+29) / 157 ≈ 1.06
Ronaldo: (133+19) / 142 ≈ 1.07

Despite having had to adapt to a new league, and having inferior players, Ronaldo has somehow edged Messi in a stat Messi should be destroying Ronaldo on.

Ronaldo vs Messi, AWAY Game La-Liga a stats (Using these 09–18 La Liga numbers when both were in the league) :

Total number of goals scored by weaker foot

Ronaldo: 65% more than Messi

Total goals scored by head

Ronaldo not only dwarfs Messi on this stat, he has scored the most headed goals in history and has broken the world record in how high he has leaped - nearly 3 meters.

Ronaldo and Messi: free kick goals scored >25 yards

While post 2014 Ronaldo’s rate went from being absolutely insane to pretty bad by this standards, across their careers, Messi leads by 2 free-kicks. However:

Ronaldo has scored >40 free kicks greater than 25 yards and a third of those > 30 yards.
Messi has scored only 6 free kicks > 25 yards and almost none >30

Alright so…when you strip the emotion out and stick to what happened on the pitch, the pattern is hard to ignore. Messi grew up in La Liga, in a system built around him, with one of the greatest midfields ever seen; Ronaldo arrived from a different league, different culture, into a less stable Madrid side and had to adapt. Yet across those years in Spain, their league numbers sit virtually identical, and in away games (the hardest place to produce)Ronaldo edges Messi in goal contributions. Then you move to where the level spikes again: the Champions League knock‑out rounds. Over an entire era, Ronaldo isn’t just slightly ahead, he owns that stage: more goals, more assists, better G+A per minute, and the greatest single Champions League season ever recorded. Add in the Juventus vs PSG chapter: Ronaldo goes to a defensively brutal Serie A and carries nearly half of Juve’s league goals; Messi joins a stacked PSG in a weaker league and impacts a much smaller share of their goals. If “doing it in any system, any league” is a serious GOAT test, one résumé looks more convincing without even including Ronaldo being a Balon D’or winger in the Premier League as a dribbler/ skiller, in their peak defensive era before all of this.

On the aesthetic side, Messi is the better pure dribbler. But once you ask the harsher questions such as: whose dribbles more often end in shots or chances, who loses the ball less, who offers more ways to beat you – the gap closes fast. Ronaldo’s take‑ons are more efficient, he is dispossessed less, and he evolves from winger to wide forward to penalty‑box killer without losing end product. Then stack on the things Messi simply doesn’t match: world‑record leaps, the most headed goals in history, far more goals with his weaker foot, and a catalogue of long‑range free kicks from 25–30+ yards that massively extend his danger zone. Put that against the objective GOAT criteria: decisive output (goals first, assists second), dominance in elite knock‑out games, performance when they shared a league, proof they could do it anywhere, and overall completeness …and the cold, uncomfortable conclusion appears:

Messi is more talented, however, the GOAT has to go to the player who checks the most boxes for “the one who did the most to win games, in the hardest conditions, with the most complete toolkit” and that is Cristiano Ronaldo.

In Both Statistics and Eye test , Messi is way above the 2nd best player

So what can we say about Messi? Doing an eye test and stats both? He scored and assisted, he now holds the record of assists. He way he shatters defense with one pass, the way he keeps the possession goes to mid field to have the ball, the way he goes solo and scores, the way he has impact on his teammates. Now how do you compare this with Ronaldo’s Only Goals stats?

So Hazard still believes he is better than Ronaldo 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

5:57 harry maguire is better than van dih tho

I get sick when i hear people say Ødegard should leave the club, but as soon as he misses a single game, the absence is so clear the opposition sees it.

Fundamentally there will be stats to explain everything even if they're not commonly known. But the eye test, if it's a keen eye and someone who genuinely understands football, will be judging players intuitively by what the stats are measuring anyway. And watching football should come first because if it's not to enhance your understanding or fun of watching actual football then what's the point.

Fundamentally a good player is either a threat or leads to threat. A player who does neither is a bad player. In attack if a player is direct, has a powerful and accurate shot, they are a threat. It is dangerous for them to be on the ball in a goalscoring position. Now suppose someone like Modric with his close control, football IQ and passing accuracy he was particularly adept at small runs or passes that would take two players out the game, giving his team a momentary potential for an overload. His actions have created more danger for the opposition and created circumstances that lead to chances for the threatening player. In defence a player might individually have great pace, stamina and tackling like Kante and thus be a threat to the opponent's possession if he is in a position to challenge the ball carrier. Or a player might be like Nesta or Maldini, where they read the game so well they understand the possibilities for the player on the ball and the players attempting to get in a position to receive the ball, and they position themselves to remove that option, allowing their team time to challenge the ball carrier, or maybe they intercept if the player tries the pass anyway. Their presence creates a problem for the opposition. Stats like goals and tackles are easy to understand even if where they come from is the essence of football. Understanding making space and man advantages and a defender reading the game is less easy to quickly explain in basic statistics. I remember in 2006 Paolo Ferreira was a supreme example of this. Not flashy in attack like Roberto Carlos or so given to last ditch tackles like English fans love to see from defenders even if these are typically a result of a mistake and not in themselves great defending, but it was extremely clear statistically that when he was on the field Chelsea conceded far fewer goals than when he was not.

People drawn more to the eye test or to statistics to judge players tend to like different players and have a different attitude. Hazard Vs Salah is always a good one. If you ask who the better player is more people will say Salah. If you ask who is more skilled some of the people who said Salah before now nevertheless answer Hazard. Salah is a very direct player and has phenomenal stats. Hazard was a more of romantic eye test kind of player, with his dribbling and acceleration and trickery to draw in and beat 2, 3, 4 players to make space and opportunity. Then lastly if you ask who you'd rather watch it splits people. Eye test people tend to love Hazard a little more, stats people tend to love Salah a little more. You can construct an answer for both, and again this comes down to a direct threat in Salah Vs a player who generates threatening circumstances in Hazard. For dribbles and progressive passes Hazard dominates statistically, for goals and assists it's Salah.

Another interesting example is Jack Grealish, who was loved as relatively direct player who'd drift to where the action was, take players on, go for risky through balls or take shots. But Pep drilled him into being a less direct player, someone who's primary traits for the team were space and opportunity creation elsewhere via holding wide positions and retaining possession when challenged. This was what Pep wanted from him when he was a key player during the treble, and his goal scoring also declined. He went from a romantic player with good looking stats, to a robotic player performing a task. And that's always going to be the least popular transformation, and one that's hard to understand from very basic stats, but Pep kept playing him and City kept winning so there was value in what he was doing for the team. Now at Everton he's wiser and his football IQ has grown, but he's a more romantic player again.

6:07 anybody who paused and saw that player A had a almost 50 more goals and conceded and way less time playing compared to B knows B was better , you just don’t know how to read the stats I don’t need to watch games

The stats = end result which is trophies or game wins that’s all I don’t need to watch games

Where i can find the full podcast with Henry?

I feel both Zidane and Ronaldinho could score whenever they wanted but just let the others do the work for them until it really mattered, then they were totally unstoppable, dinho even stopped and danced outside the box before scoring 😂

Don't compare lamps and Iniesta while showing that disgrace of a football match ever again. Instant dislike. Typa shit to make me ask YouTube to never recommend you to me again.

Stat's show that football is business more than sport.

The fact that Messi is good both in stats and eye-test💀☠️

Dude make more videos. You been asleep.

2:58 Ronaldo is such a beast.

No 10 rule is different now .. If Zidane play today, he would have the stats for example de brune ..

Use both. The end.

Stats prove that maguire is better which he is

Counting assists in football is ridiculous. Counting succesful dribbles is beyond ridiculous.

The main issue i have with this video is that you assume the people doing the eye test are toddlers, and u give the example of Busquets being underated and act as if people who watched Busquets dont realise how good he is as if he doesnt have one of the nicest highlight reels of all time, he is reguarded as one of the best cdm of all time, his value was super easy to spot, when he gets jumped by 2 players and sends them both with a simple faint and turn every fan can see that

numbers are subjective, surprisingly. it's kinda dumb to judge football from simply "stats". football is not data-driven

Moneyball and this whole revolution poisoned so many minds, there people with a straight face arguing that Haaland is better player than Henry and shit like that based on stats. Even if you will buy the premise of that movie, which is, basically, you are being stupid to believe your eyes over spreadsheets, there is a poison in its core, something like “everyone is buying players, while they should buy wins” no amount of wins that Brad Pitt had bought helped them eventually, Oakland Athletics is out of business, and entire MLB is on the way to follow them. I don’t care how great of the manager Pep is, what he has done to Grealish is a fucking crime, I feel sorry for Marmoush in advance and generally people are waking up to see through this shit.

P.S. We haven’t even touch on how stats can be manipulated by players, deliberately or not.

Why do messi fans use trophies to prove that they are better than Ronaldo but call Real Madrid fans glory hunters for talking about their trophies? not only that but they have more wins, that's the problems with stats.

The next evolution will be AI performing the "eye test" on all big league players and games.

em, stats of past decades were not so great. Less goals

you lowkey cooked Ronaldo fanboys (ones on twitter i mean)😭😭

Presents shallow stats
Uses them wrongly
"There must be no stats that can represent this example"

Laughably, stats do have many shortcomings and football is notoriously difficult to moneyball, and yet, this idiot manages to almost only present examples that can be explained with better stats.
Terrible video

6:35 he is not stronger than Maguire

It’s a combination of watching, context and statistics. The way I define a good footballer can be applied across every sport. Versatility, Hustle, Output, and Clutch.

It's stats for everyone but muller, because he doesn't play conventionally and can't be measured conventionally, but there is a stat for everything, except being a raumdeuter

When you watch the game, you don’t see Busquets. When you watch Busquets, you see the whole game.

I totally agree With you most people underate the defensive part of football in my opinion defending might be the hardest position on the field

So during a match, we can track stats for many things (chances, goal attempts, passes, dribbles, player creativity, the number of fouls they commit, movement, the subtlety of certain actions, etc.). That’s why the referee must dissect the game (it’s heartbreaking when the referee is corrupt and only focuses in one direction). That's why it's necessary to watch a match in live or to re-watch a match fully. No matter what is the results of the game. The eye test is the most interesting aspect of football. A good player isn’t necessarily complete in all areas, but shows qualities that may appeal more or less to different viewers. That’s what makes the game alive and subtle. The number of goals is just one part of the stats. You can compare one player to another by looking at specific statistics rather than focusing only on records tied to victories. A good player isn’t necessarily one who always wins; a good player can simply be entertaining to watch. Just like a good player can also be strong in terms of winning. But victory doesn’t invalidate other talents.
We can also try to discuss which players manage to meet the most criteria if we want to determine who are the "complete" players.
But there are other criteria to consider if we aim to make a realistic portrait of a player's abilities by talking about their "environment" and their "persona." These are things I particularly appreciate because they make football more complete and interesting to follow.
A football match is a large canvas.
There are players, each with a specific role, and they’ve been trained for that. There’s a coach who is supposed to adapt his teaching method to his team... For that, he must grasp the capabilities of his players but also understand their personality and temperament. The players must understand each other to form a good symbiosis during the match.
We should take into account the number of games played in relation to successes.
Players are human beings, so we should also consider that, due to family or health reasons, they might choose to shorten their career.
But what’s even more interesting is to focus on the players’ personas.
Zidane didn’t have bad numbers, let’s say his stats were okay, but one of the reasons Zidane is well-known, beyond the stats and visible qualities, is his persona: his character, his aspirations, his way of speaking, his style, the way he carried himself, his temperament... Zidane created a historic moment when he headbutted Marco Materazzi. It was historic. Or even Francesco Totti (he has many records and his overall qualities are widely recognized, it’s different): he represents a Roman emperor, he was loyal to AS Roma. Today, he wouldn’t be as well-known because most players switch clubs to gain popularity and earn more money... Totti is an international legend, but today he would be seen only as a national legend. He is more than a player, he is a mythical persona.
Having such a consistent persona is just as important as the other factors mentioned earlier.
That's why ppl are nostalgic of the golden era of the 1990-2000s football, players were more tactical and had personas that were more "authentic" in a way.

My problem is you lot make it seem like players who pass the eye test don't have good stats. Zidane has very good stats in relation to number of games he played. Yet in your video it's as if Zidane didn't put up good numbers. I bet you if we took a look at Zidane's chance creation, dribbles, forward passes, you'll see he has very good stats. Same applies to Lampard, it's as if everyone thinks Lampard only scored goals yet you claim you watch football? So all the rant about eye test led you to conclude that Lampard only scores goals?
As you rightly said stats need context and every reasonably person needs to look at stats in context but all these rant about eye test being better is flawed, we can all watch the game yet we'll see different things. If this was the case in 1990 or earlier, I would understand but we're the 2st century and there are stats for almost maybe 85% of stuff that happens on the field. We have heatmaps, touch maps, and a lot of graphics all forming stats. I bet you, we could just look art these and know the role a player is playing on thr field, 7/10 times.

Both methods maybe have their downsides but stats just edge the eye test. But then again, as someone rightfully said, combining the two makes a much more perfect picture

Truly excellent video. Gained a sub!

Crazy for this channel to drop such a banger, should have 3M+ views

yea stats can be misleading especially when looking at players role for their team + team playstyle. To judge a player we need both stats and eye test not just one of em.

Drogba is a very good example. Never troubled the top scorer leader, hell, Frank Lampard was often challenging him for top club scorer but …ask any defence …he was a nightmare. Ask Arsenal fans 😂🥹😭