Messi, Neymar, Hazard: Stats reveal the world's best dribblers since 2009 | OneFootball

Lionel Messi could dribble his way out of a phone box that he’d been locked in with five world-class defenders while handcuffed and wearing flip-flops.

Say what you like about his standing in the GOAT debate, but you’d have to be the most cynical football fan of all time if you don’t feel at least a little bit giddy when Messi dribbles at full speed.

Yes, you could well throw the book at him whenever his mazy runs don’t end up in a goal or assist, but sometimes that simply doesn’t matter and the sheer spectacle of football is what provides the joy.

The magic of Messi

And that’s why so many of Messi’s biggest fans are drawn to the way he plays the game, barely caring what the final score might be or how many goals he scores, but just unabashedly focusing on the entertainment factor.

It’s the whole argument that Messi is the greatest player of all time for simply having a certain je ne sais quoi that transcends Twitter threads, fan arguments and Ballon d’Or totals.

However, before we go down a flowery and poetic rabbit hole of what it is that makes Messi special, let’s try and ground it in the statistics because even the most seemingly unquantifiable things are always quantifiable to an extent in the world of football.

Most successful dribblers since 2009

And courtesy of the brilliant Twitter account that is @ThePopFoot, we’re seldom left wanting for statistical comparisons that allow us to see the European men’s game in different and exciting ways.

The latest of which, it just so happens, sees the swashbuckling, take-on-all-comers approach of Messi take the spotlight as they have revealed the players with the most successful dribbles in single seasons since 2009.

A fascinating measure not just of how much certain players go for the jugular by using dribbling, but also, simply put, how good or not they are at actually completing said slaloms past defenders.

And let’s just say that the results paint a quite astonishing picture in which the sheer brilliance of Messi’s dribbling prowess couldn’t be any clearer, so be sure to check out the top 20 down below:

19. Yacine Brahimi (2013/14) – 161

18. Wilfried Zaha (2019/20) – 163

17. Lionel Messi (2013/14) – 167

16. Lionel Messi (2018/19) – 169

15. Eden Hazard (2018/19) – 170

14. Karim Bellarabi (2014/15) – 172

13. Eden Hazard (2013/14) – 174

12. Lionel Messi (2020/21) – 188

11. Neymar (2015/16) – 189

10. Neymar (2017/18) – 193

9. Eden Hazard (2017/18) – 199

8. Lionel Messi (2009/10) – 202

7. Neymar (2016/17) – 218

6. Lionel Messi (2011/12) – 220

5. Lionel Messi (2017/18) – 222

4. Eden Hazard (2014/15) – 231

3. Lionel Messi (2019/20) – 239

2. Lionel Messi (2010/11) – 265

Messi in a league of his own

You can also check out the original tweet complete with its full graphic down below to see the total number of dribbles each player attempted, as well as their success rate, on the way to their total.

But regardless of whether you want to screenshot it for your camera roll, look at it through a telescope or print it off for an A3 canvas on your living room wall, the magnificence of Messi’s dribbling is unmissable each and every time.

For the Paris Saint-Germain superstar to take nine of the 20 slots all by himself, including five of the top six positions, is the stuff that dreams are made off. The man is a dribbling machine.

And it really does make you want to give the likes of Hazard and Neymar a rapturous round of applause because the fact that they ever managed to get in vaguely the same ballpark as Messi in an achievement unto itself.

After all, there is many a great player who have fallen short with Cristiano Ronaldo no less proving conspicuous by his absence, though his finest dribbling days did admittedly come prior to 2009.

So hats off to the forever-entertaining Zaha for muscling his way in despite playing for a mid-table Crystal Palace side, while Bellarabi and Brahimi also punched above their weight in the Bundesliga and La Liga respectively.

However, when you consider that Messi’s most dribble-heavy season is a staggering 35 runs above the next highest finisher who isn’t him, you just know that he’s simply in a league of his own.