I was rewatching Barcelona's CL runs from 2016-2021 while sick, and I noticed a trend of Messi seemingly underperforming statistically despite the "eye-test" showing that he was creating a high quality chances.
I decided to quickly look at the stats through Opta/MVR.com/WhoScored, and noticed something interesting.
Opta defines a big chance as "A situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score, usually in a one on one scenario or from very close range when the ball has a clear path to goal and there is low to moderate pressure on the shooter.".
Messi has created 27 big chances in the UCL Knockouts since 2010. Of those 27 big chances created, only 8 were converted (29%).
Now, it's reasonable for strikers to miss big chance opportunities. However:
When looking at historical data, like this article showing big chance conversion rate across PL teams in 2012 or this more recent article you can see that average/decent teams usually have a 40-45 percent conversion rate as a team (I think this includes all players, not just forwards/strikers).
Meaning that if players were decent finishers, Messi could have had 3-4 more assists minimum.
What makes this more interesting is that from 2010-2015, Messi created 13 big chances, and his teammates converted 6 of them (46%).
But from 2016 onwards, Messi created 14 big chances and his teammates converted two of them (both against Lyon in 2019!).
Thought it was pretty interesting
yeah RM rested players and barca didn’t, which is a contributing factor to barca not performing as well in the CL. its why madrid has 0 trebles