Messi played Clasico at walking pace

Messi showed tremendous vision during the first half of the El Clasico where Real Madrid were the better side but the Argentine really came alive in the second half to seal the win for FC Barcelona away from home and the stats from the match show that Messi played the majority of the game at walking pace.

There was a man-marking scheme for Lionel Messi in place as Mateo Kovacic started the game. Kovacic and Casemiro covered Messi pretty well in the first half while the Argentine kept looking for a weakness in Madrid’s defensive structures.

Messi often watches the play while at walking pace. He might appear to be rather disinterested, looking away from the ball or following the action nonchalantly. However, the Argentine always observes, and is always trying to read his opponents game plan. The first Barca goal came because Messi drew Kovacic away from the action.

Also Read: Messi is the El Clasico King

Messi is often accused of being lazy and not running without the ball. Dutch great Johan Cruyff talked about conserving energy for the most important actions. Messi uses his stamina to great effect and picks his moments to use that energy reserve. On Saturday, he skinned Marcelo before putting the ball into the path of Aleix Vidal to score Barca’s third goal – Messi did it without a boot on his right foot.

That was an instant where Messi used his energy reserve to just float past Marcelo. The Brazilian only managed to get Messi's boot off his right foot.

According to El Peridico, Messi played 83.1 percent of the match at walking pace. He jogged for 10.8 percent of the match and ran for 4.95 percent of the match.

Only 1.15 percent of the match was spent running at full sprint over the course of the 90 minutes.