The plays · Plate II
Real Madrid, 27 April 2011
Champions League semi-final, first leg, the 87th minute, with Barcelona a goal up against ten men. He is 23. From the pass he gives Sergio Busquets to the ball in the net: 7.8 seconds, forty metres, seven touches, four defenders and the keeper. The run, drawn instant by instant and measured from the broadcast.
Fig. 1 The goal, as broadcast
Fig. 2 The play, instant by instant
Plate II Eight instants, 7.8 seconds
Charcoal studies after the broadcast, main camera, the follow-camera replay and the replay facing the goal. Times are from his pass to Busquets, counted frame by frame in the live feed of the club’s upload at 25 frames per second. The replays run slower than life, so those instants are placed by events shared with the live feed and are good to about a quarter of a second. The red crayon marks the ball.
Fig. 3 The ground he covered
Table 1 Measured
| First touch to the ball over the line | 7.8 s | Frame by frame at 25 fps in the live feed of the club’s upload: the pass to Busquets at 1:32:43.08, the whole ball over the line at 1:32:50.92. From his first touch on the return it is 3.7 s. 90min’s account says eight seconds. |
|---|---|---|
| Ground covered with the ball | ≈ 40 m | His own run along the reconstructed path, from the pass to the shot. ± 3 m. |
| Touches | 7 | Our count, from the main camera and the follow-camera replay: the pass, then six. The ball is out of sight behind Marcelo for two frames, so six or eight is defensible. |
| Opponents beaten | 4 and the keeper | Lassana Diarra, Raúl Albiol, Marcelo and Sergio Ramos, then Iker Casillas. UEFA’s report counts four defenders, the Guardian’s five players. No one tackles him cleanly; Albiol gets an arm across. |
| Average speed with the ball | ≈ 6 m/s | 40 m over the 6.8 s from the pass to the shot. About 22 km/h, including the one-two. |
| Fastest stretch | ≈ 9 m/s | Touches two to three, the long touch past Albiol that he runs on to: about 13 m in 1.5 s. ± 2 m/s, since the positions carry ± 3 m. |
| The finish | right foot · 7 m · 33° | From about 7 m out and 27 m from the right touchline, the goal subtends about 33 degrees. Along the ground past Casillas and about 1.4 m inside the far post: about 11.5 m in 1.08 s, so about 11 m/s. |
| Score | 2–0 | Barcelona won the leg 2–0, drew the return 1–1 and beat Manchester United 3–1 in the final at Wembley. Messi has named this as his favourite match. |
How this was made. The clip is the club’s. The drawings are charcoal studies after single frames of it, main camera, follow camera and the replay facing the goal, with the poses, the positions and the ball kept where they were; the frames themselves are not reproduced. Every line, number and name on this page is drawn by the page, not by hand, from the measurements above. Busquets’s part follows UEFA’s report; the names and order of the beaten men follow Goal.com’s report and were checked by shirt number in the frames. 90min’s account puts Ramos before Albiol, which the frames do not bear out. The minute is the 87th in ESPN’s and Eurosport’s records; the Guardian’s report says the 88th. The duration and the touches were counted frame by frame in the club’s upload; the run’s length and the positions are our reconstruction from the pitch markings and carry the stated uncertainty.
Sources: FC Barcelona, the full match (YouTube) · UEFA, match report · The Guardian, Sid Lowe’s report · Goal.com, match report · 90min, anatomy of the goal · FC Barcelona, Messi’s favourite match
Drawings by the site, after the broadcast; each clip comes from its rights holder’s own channel. An unofficial, non-commercial fan project, not affiliated with Lionel Messi or any club, league or federation. Spot a mistake? Email corrections@boyfromrosario.org.