By the numbers, Lionel Messi is European football’s best scorer ever
从数据来看，莱昂内尔·梅西是欧洲足坛史上最佳射手
Goals make up only half of his value, but his scoring was more impactful than that of other greats
进球只体现了梅西一半的价值，但他的进球比其他伟大球员更具影响力
Football’s most fruitful partnership has ended in tears. On August 8th a weeping Lionel Messi said he was leaving Barcelona, the club he joined when he was just 13. The Argentine forward has scored a record 474 goals in La Liga, Spain’s top league. His teams have won ten La Liga titles and four Europe-wide Champions League trophies.
足球史上最富有成效的一段合作关系在泪水中走到了尽头。8月8日，泪流满面的梅西宣布，他将离开在他13岁时就加入的巴塞罗那俱乐部。这位阿根廷前锋在西甲(西班牙顶级联赛)攻入了创纪录的474粒进球。他带领巴塞罗那赢下10次西甲冠军和4次欧冠联赛冠军。
Mr Messi offered to slash his salary in order to stay. But Barcelona is deep in debt, and pays 95% of its revenue in wages. La Liga has set a ceiling of 70%, forcing the club to let him go. On August 10th he joined Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), a rich French team.
为了能留在巴塞罗那，梅西曾表示愿意大幅减薪。但巴塞罗那已经负债累累，球员薪资支出占总收入的95%。而西甲联赛设定了70%的薪资上限，因此巴塞罗那只得挥泪放走梅西。8月10日，梅西加盟了法国豪门巴黎圣日耳曼俱乐部。
Now 34, Mr Messi may not even be PSG’s top scorer next season. But the only question about his peak in 2009-19 is whether it was the greatest ever. Although historical
comparisons are tricky in football, the best available data suggest that it was.
现年34岁的梅西或许未必能够成为下赛季巴黎圣日耳曼的头号射手。但有关他在2009至2019赛季这一巅峰时期的唯一问题是，他的巅峰期表现能否称得上足球史之最。虽然足球运动很难进行跨时代比较，但现有的最佳数据还是能够给出答案。
Mr Messi’s standing relative to his contemporaries can be analysed reliably. Today, the location and result of every shot, dribble, pass and tackle are tracked. KU Leuven, a university, and SciSports, an analytics firm, have built a system to measure how each action affects a team’s odds of scoring, by comparing where the ball was before and after a player touched it.
梅西相对于同时代球员的成就能够得到有效的分析。如今，每一次射门、运球、传球和铲球的位置及结果都会被记录下来。鲁汶大学和数据分析公司SciSports建立了一套系统，该系统通过比较球员触球前后的位置，来衡量球员的每个动作对球队得分几率的影响。
In 2012-20, their model reckons that Mr Messi would have boosted an average team’s scoring margin by 1.77 goals per match. Cristiano Ronaldo, his old rival at Real Madrid, came a distant second at 1.43.
据他们的模型估计，从2012赛季至2020赛季，梅西平均每场比赛能够给球队带来1.77个进球。他的老对手——曾效力于皇家马德里的C罗则以1.43个进球的成绩屈居第二。
Comparing Mr Messi with past greats is harder. The only data available for all European leagues before 2000 are goals scored and match results. And not all goals are created equal: scoring rates fell sharply from 1950 to 1970, and goals are easier to come by in
weaker leagues.
将梅西与过去那些伟大的球员进行比较就更具难度了。2000年以前的所有欧洲联赛仅有进球和比赛结果的数据。并且每个进球之间的价值也不一样：从1950年至1970年，进球率在急剧下降，而且在实力较弱的联赛更容易破门。
To level the playing field, we devised an exchange rate called the Modern-Equivalent Soccer Scoring Index (MESSI). For each season in each league, it uses the average number of goals per match and team strength—as measured by the Elo system, which rates clubs based on their results and the quality of their opponents—to estimate how many goals players would have scored under different conditions.
为了公平起见，我们设计了一种被称为现代等效足球得分指数（即梅西指数）的换算方式。对于每个联赛的每个赛季，该系统会使用每场比赛的平均进球数和球队实力（由基于俱乐部成绩和对手实力对俱乐部进行评级的Elo评分系统衡量）来估计球员在不同情况下会进多少个球。
For example, in the 1960s Eusébio played in a weak, high-scoring Portuguese league. His goals are worth 37% less than those in La Liga in 2004-21. By contrast, Diego Maradona faced stout Italian defences, making his goals worth 5% more than the modern baseline. (We excluded penalties, which pad some strikers’ stats more than others’.)
例如，上世纪60年代，尤西比奥在实力较弱但进球数较多的葡萄牙联赛踢球。他在这一时期的进球价值要比2004至2021赛季在西甲联赛时低37%。相比之下，迭戈·马拉多纳面对的是意大利强大的防守，这使他的进球价值比现代基线高出5%。（我们将点球排除在外，因为点球会使一些前锋的数据被夸大。）
After these tweaks, the diminutive Mr Messi stands head and shoulders above the competition. At his best, he averaged one goal per 90 minutes. Mr Ronaldo reached
0.9; greats from earlier eras were below 0.8.
经过校正，个头不高的梅西远远胜过了他的竞争对手。巅峰时期的梅西平均每90分钟进一球。C罗则是0.9球；而早期的一些伟大球员不到0.8球。
These rankings are far from perfect. They underrate players like Maradona and Johan Cruyff, who were as much creators as finishers. And they cannot capture the value of defenders like Franz Beckenbauer.
此类排名方式并不完美。它们低估了马拉多纳和克鲁伊夫这样的球员，他们既能把握机会，也在创造机会。这些排名也无法反映弗朗茨·贝肯鲍尔这样的后卫的价值。
Even among strikers, important data are missing. Ferenc Puskas’s latter years roughly match Mr Messi’s recent seasons. Unfortunately, Elo ratings do not exist for the post-war Hungarian leagues that the young Puskas dominated. Nor are they available for Brazil or America, where Pelé, widely seen as the greatest player of the 20th century, played club football.
即使只对前锋进行比较，也缺乏一些重要的数据。普斯卡斯后期的表现与梅西最近几个赛季的表现旗鼓相当。然而，年轻的普斯卡斯横扫赛场的战后匈牙利联赛却缺少Elo评分。巴西和美洲的联赛同样缺少Elo评分，而在那里踢球的贝利则是公认的20世纪球王。
What is certain, based on modern analytics, is that only half of Mr Messi’s value comes from shots at goal. He is also an extraordinary dribbler and passer. This suggests that even the prolific Puskas and Pelé may not have been his equal.
可以肯定的是，基于现代的数据分析，进球只体现了梅西一半的价值。同时，他
也是一位非凡的运球手和传球手。这意味着，即使是高产射手普斯卡斯和贝利可能也不是他的对手。
重难点词汇：
contemporary [kənˈtempəreri] adj. 发生（属）于同时期的 n. 同代人；同时期的东西
dribble [ˈdrɪbl] v. 流口水；细流；运球
diminutive [dɪˈmɪnjətɪv] adj. 小的；小型的；微小的
