fivethirtyeight did a similar analysis of Messi going into the world cup and found he covered less distance than most players, but somehow managed to create mor

fivethirtyeight did a similar analysis of Messi going into the world cup and found he covered less distance than most players, but somehow managed to create more separation with the defence than anyone else. I think it would be common across all sports to find the true elite players do something fundamentally different from everyone else. I would also place a large bet the thing they do that makes them elite would be something coaches at lower levels (or even the elite level) would be trying to train out of them trying to extract even more performance.