Lionel Messi

Sourced facts, dated and on the record. Squad membership, and his club when a source names one. Nothing invented; we don’t make players up.

At a glance

age
38
sourced with the squad
position
Offence
Argentina
our board
#12
of 1424 rated players
folded so far
1609′
21 appearances
npxG + xA per 90
0.77
100th percentile of peers

On the pitch

Goals for Argentina, on the record and counted.

goals
6
assists
0

goals and assists from our captured match events · caps and minutes from the appearance record

Sourced

squad: Argentina · Offencefootball-data.org · 2026-06-29

Sourced context, nothing more. It never touches a call.

Our rating · the working

the board →

2088 ±45

his quality rating: club, age and measured output. The board orders by this plus his World Cup form, less a discount for how much we can measure him.

How the number is builtopenclose

2108 full roster Elo (+20 from national-team results)

the ± is how settled the number is, more minutes, tighter band

Tier 2, lineups + results, how rich the evidence is, not just how much

at or near his peak, no projected upside from age

Where he starts (his team’s strength, we refuse to invent what we haven’t measured) plus two fixed nudges make the quality rating above; the last line is what national-team results have added since, taking it to his full roster Elo.

starts at Argentina's strengththe fair club-over-national anchor, every player's starting point: 1963
age curve at 38 (offences' curve)measured from the open archive by our own study (defenders: the published literature's shape), never fitted to our calls: -22
attacking output, our xG modelhis percentile among minutes-qualified peers, from club seasons: +147
quality rating · club, age + measured output: 2088
form: national-team results, 21 appearances1609 minutes, weighted by margin, surprise and his match stats, but shared across the XI: +20
full roster Elo · with results: 2108

Where the +147 skill term comes from

Not a reputation, a measurement. We score every shot in the data ourselves and rank him among minutes-qualified peers; a fixed arithmetic turns that rank into points.

measured: 0.77 npxG + xA per 90
his rank: 100th percentile of qualified peers
scored from: the open StatsBomb archive, every shot scored by our own xG model
the arithmetic: 46 pts/σ × z(99.9th) = 46 × 3.19 = +147

A forward-only shadow signal, as of 2026-06-28. The skill term comes from our own xG models over the open archive; the rest is earned, recorded per appearance, auditable, never back-filled. It never moves a live call.

The notebook

The lines a beat writer keeps, except every one of ours is read off the ledger above, auditable to the night. Nothing invented.

standing
#12 of 1424 on our board, inside the top 1% of everyone we rate.
vs his seed
The folded nights have added +20 to the number he seeded with, he has outplayed his own prior.

What he’d cost · our estimate

We don’t price him yet. Our fee model leans on the level he plays at, and no trusted source has given us his club’s strength. We’d rather show nothing than a number we don’t trust.

The fee record · sourced

2023-07-15Paris Saint Germain → Inter Miamifree
2021-08-10Barcelona → Paris Saint Germainfree

Reported moves, dated and attributed (api-football.com), news facts, not a valuation site’s estimates. It never touches a call.

In our coverage · Argentina’s record

at Jordan1–3Called it
v Austria2–0Called it
v Algeria3–0Called it

The newsroom’s calls on Argentina. Team-level, never dressed up as a player stat.