🇪🇸 LaLiga Player of the Season - Who else? | OneFootball

Real Madrid were the best team in Spain this season, deserved winners. Sergio Ramos and Karim Benzema, in particular, had superb campaigns.

But still not as good as Lionel Messi.

What can we say? Sometimes the best player doesn’t play for the best team.

Messi turned 33 in June but he has been just as effective as ever in 2019/20. His 25-goal haul in the league was the fewest he’s managed in over 10 years but he more than made up for it with his creativity, notching a career-best 21 assists.

It was the first time in his career he managed over 20 goals and over 20 assists in a LaLiga season and nobody else in the league scored as many or created as many. Those goals and assists account for 55% of the league goals scored by Barcelona during the season, and therein lies the problem.

Age will catch up with Messi, because it catches up with everyone, and even he can’t carry this Barcelona team to glory anymore.

The reliance on the Argentine is astounding – he completed more dribbles per 90 minutes (5.7)  than in any of the last nine LaLiga seasons.

There’s more.

Messi is still in a world of his own, leading LaLiga in goals, assists, chances created, take-ons, shots, shots on target, free-kick goals, hat-tricks.

The fact is, Barcelona rely on him more than ever. He’s playmaker-in-chief, he’s the goalscorer, he’s the key to unlock a defence. And it makes Barcelona predictable.

Compared to previous years, when they had more star players who actually gelled together, you can now stop them if you manage to stop Messi.

Real Madrid haven’t suffered from the same issue. They have different threats, they can play different styles, they are defensively secure. And that’s why it’s Messi who has ended the season empty handed.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not still the best player in the country.