Lionel Messi or Lebron James: Who is more decisive to win titles?

The relationship of more than 20 years between Lionel Messi and Barcelona, with all the love for the jersey that this implies, was not enough to break that link, with PSG as the beneficiary and hopeful in finally winning a Champions League.

However, a mathematical model created by the economist Martín Rossi, in conjunction with the University of Copenhagen, puts things in their place as far as superstars are concerned, because these types of figures are not usually as decisive in football, as they are in leagues like the NBA or the NFL.

Thanks to a variable called "Marginal Productivity of Talent" (PMT) and the study of thousands of results and football leagues in the world, they were able to conclude that adding talent to a soccer squad, as in the recent case of Messi at Paris Saint -Germain, the probability that your new team will win Ligue 1 or in this case the Champions League does not change much, which is the wish of the PSG owners.

On the other hand, if you add talent to an NBA or NFL team, the chances of them being champions go up. As an example, he gave the case of LeBron James when he came to the Lakers, being champion in his first season, and that of Tom Brady, who after winning six titles with the New England Patriots, also obtained his seventh with the Tampa Buccaneers. Bay, a team that won nothing since 2002.

“What is 'Marginal Talent Productivity'? How the probability of winning a match changes if your talent increases a little compared to your rival. In this work we took data from a lot of years, from a lot of leagues in the world, we did a statistical thesis and what we found is that the PMT is very different between sports”,explained Rossi, doctor in economics from the University of Harvard and Vice-rector of the University of San Andrés, in Argentina.