Lionel Messi had two "down" years before the current season, but his 86 goals for Barcelona and Argentina were more statistically critical than Cristiano Ronaldo's 105 for Real Madrid and Portugal. Ronaldo has won the Ballon d'Or in each of the past two years with Messi finishing second.
The statistic that weights goals according to their context is called Expected Points Added (EPA), an application of the Win Probability Added framework originally developed for baseball.
Ronaldo's 105 goals contributed 41.6 EP to Real Madrid and his national squad, an average of 0.40 EPA per goal.
Messi had a 40.3 EPA from his 86 goals, an average of 0.47 each. On five different occasions in 2013 and 2014, he netted a tie-breaking goal in the final 20 minutes of a contest.
Via The Economist
