Lionel Messi is an incredible footballer and is considered by many to be the best player in the world. There are a number of reasons why Messi is such an effective dribbler. Firstly, he has a low centre of gravity, which allows him to stay steady even when surrounded by opposing players. Secondly, he is extremely agile and has great stamina, meaning he can sprint for long periods of time without tiring. Finally, Messi is also a very creative player, often coming up with new and innovative ways to beat opponents.

Lionel Messi is considered the greatest football player of all time. Born in Rosario, Argentina, Messi currently plays for FC Barcelona. Initially, Messi started out as a complete right winger who would dribble or cut inside with his dominant left foot to shoot or make a sharp pass, breaking down the defense in the middle.

Finally, under Pep Guardiola, Messi has been operating as a false-9, a striker who drops deep and receives the ball a little deeper, to link up with his midfielders. Nowadays, Messi can be found operating almost anywhere on the pitch, either cutting in from the right or roaming the middle of the pitch.

Lionel Messi in the 2011 FIFA Club World Cup Final. This role of movement can be partly attributed to his footballing vision and creativity, and partly to his unparalleled dribbling ability. Messi often deliberately breaches the opponent’s defense by expertly dribbling past players and opening up space behind them. In this space, even a small gap of a few seconds is enough for Messi to look up and find his teammate with a quick pass.

His signature move is the feint, a move in which he shimmies and quickly switches the ball to the other foot, causing his now-hypnotized opponent to misjudge the move, misdirect, and fall to the ground due to his momentum. However, he has recently become more admired for his daring nutmegs.

At the age of 10, Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency, which left him very small. This prevented him from growing as much as other children. The treatment would cost his father at least $1,000 a month. However, recognizing Messi’s bold talent, FC Barcelona signed him after his trial. The contract included payment of the treatment costs. Today, Messi is still a bit chubby, standing at 170 cm.

Despite this medical adversity, Messi’s genetic condition has inadvertently made him one of the greatest footballers of all time. He was scientifically designed to be the best. This is certainly a bold statement, but simple physics will prove it true.

I would also like to state that height does not necessarily imply high-quality football ability. Several other football players besides Messi are short, but they have achieved more than Messi. Of course, this difference depends on other factors, which I will discuss at the end of the article.

Low center of gravity

Commentators often describe Messi’s dribbling ability with clichés such as “the ball sticks to his feet.” Despite his physical disadvantage, Messi rarely falls or falls to the ground after being pushed around by a crowd of physically fit opponents. His ball control is unquestionable. This durability may be due to his low center of gravity.

Lionel Messi dribbles past the AS Roma defence during a pre-season friendly match for the 2015-16 season. When gravity acts on an object, all the particles of the object are pulled towards the Earth. The net force is the weight of the object. But where does this net force act? In other words, the individual forces can be added together to form a single force acting on a single point on the object. This hypothetical point at which the entire weight of the object is concentrated is called the object’s centre of gravity (COG).

The COG is the point at which all the individual weights are balanced. It is not fixed and varies depending on the weight and distribution of this weight in an object. For a perfect sphere, this point is at the center. However, gravity acts in more complicated ways as the shape of the object changes. However, despite the distorted shape, there is a point at which all the forces are balanced, but it is not located at the exact center of the body. The center of gravity of a human is estimated to be around the waist. An important finding is that it is lower for short and fat bodies, and higher for taller bodies .

A person’s center of gravity is closely related to balance and stability. Imagine you slowly bow your head to the ground. With each forward tilt, your COG shifts upward, where your weight increases. Without any shift in your feet, the pull of gravity at this new point would act as a torque and “spin” you onto your heels, forcing you to fall. The force of the somersault depends on the distance between this new point and the original center of gravity. This means that taller people will have a harder time maintaining their balance when hit by multiple thrusts. Conversely, because this distance is smaller for shorter people, their balance will be less likely to be disrupted. Although taller people may find it more difficult to bow, they can gain stability by lowering their COG by, for example, sitting in a chair.

The low center of gravity is why military vehicles are short and sturdy. This allows them to turn quickly without tipping over. This principle becomes easier to understand when we compare it to a door. A door can be forced open with the slightest push when the force is applied to the edge of the door. Meanwhile, opening a door becomes more difficult as our point of contact gets closer to the hinge. The peak of resistance is observed when this point is right next to its hinge. As the point of contact moves away from the hinge, the door becomes easier to open.

Coming back to Messi, perhaps we can now understand why, despite being kicked and pushed, Messi can still stand. His low centre of gravity also allows him to decelerate and accelerate in short bursts. It is fair to say that Messi is genetically designed to be, if not the greatest, then one of the greatest players to ever play the game.

Nature vs. Nurture​

No sports analysis would be fair without acknowledging the Nature vs. Nurture debate. Yes, Messi has a lower centre of gravity and remains grounded, but more importantly, despite the knocks, he remains on the ball. Hence the “glue” metaphor, but does this apply to every physically fit footballer who has ever stepped on the pitch?

Eden Hazard, Sergio Aguero and Alexis Sanchez are other excellent dribblers whose ability is partly due to their short stature and therefore low centre of gravity. Attributing this incredible dribbling ability to his genetic makeup, his nature, is unfair to the years of hard work he put in as a teenager. Although Mozart was genetically designed to understand music, without practice, it all went to waste.

Without deliberate practice, Messi would not have achieved greatness, nor would anyone else! Due to his physical weakness, Messi would not have been able to break through defenses. His passion and desire to win motivated him to develop a unique form of strength and train harder to compete with the elite players in the sport. However, back to the natural side, Messi exemplifies the deadly combination of endurance and speed. A study of soccer dribbling found that dribbling significantly increases the energy and force cost of the movement, as well as increases blood lactate levels when performed at high speeds.

Messi Olympic soccer-7 Blood lactate levels are related to the production and accumulation of lactic acid. This is the acid that causes the burning and fatigue we experience in our muscles after an intense workout. Furthermore, the sudden decelerations and accelerations that Messi performs to perform his feints require more energy than just sprinting, as these movements “increase the metabolic load.” Why is this important? One study found that speed and power traits are influenced by 30% to 90% of genetic factors, while maximal oxygen uptake or endurance are influenced by 40% to 70% of genetic factors. Messi was naturally gifted with these traits, although again, it would be unfair to deny nurture and put nature first.

After the 2000 trial, first-team director Charly Rexach wanted to sign the prodigy immediately. In the absence of legal paperwork, Messi signed his first contract on the back of a napkin. The skinny, quiet boy—to the point of being considered mute—helped Barcelona win countless trophies and went on to win a record five Ballon d’Ors. Messi has won just about everything except football’s crown jewel, the World Cup, something Maradona has done.

With over 600 goals for the team, Messi is the highest goal scorer in FC Barcelona’s history. His grandmother, Celia, accompanied him to training sessions and matches when he was a child. Celia died shortly after his eleventh birthday, which had a serious impact on Messi as a child. He celebrates his goals by looking up and pointing to the sky, as a tribute to her.