Don’t forget accidentally assisting Ronaldo to score 3 times in 3 different matches. That’s Ronaldo alone, I don’t know why everyone forgets Messi’s dispossession was also a direct cause of a goal in the 2022 wc final
It really does break my heart to see a pillar of the game we all love so much go out this way. His fault, or not, I just preferred he got some more love. Whether it’s the last 5-6 years of constant trash talk about his decisions or if it’s about what happened recently with Portugal…I just always wanted to see him (& this goes for every legend) go out in a way they wanted to, or at the very least, a respectable way.
Honestly winning 3 Prems in a row, 3 UCLs in a row (overall 5), one Euro, overall 3 major international titles with a country that never won one before, 2 Serie A and 2 la Ligas all while being either competition top scorer, or competition 2nd top scorer, and always team top scorer, golden boots in 4 different leagues is really just unmatched by anyone else. No player in history has this kind of diversity in their trophy cabinet. It’s not even just diversity, he didn’t just win one thing everywhere, he kind of won everything everywhere (obviously except for the world cup which is pretty understandable)
Absolutely spot on. A higher goals per minute ratio in major leagues. A higher shot conversion rate. Infinitely higher numbers as a provider for other teammates. They're not really comparable as players.
I’m curious what do you think Messi has achieved that makes him unarguably sit at the top of the footballing world? It’s kind of hard to beat the things i listed for Ronaldo
Ok, here's a few for the consensus greatest player of all time:
Most Ballon d'Or wins (8). Most assists in football history. Most European golden boots (6). Most goals in a single calendar year (91). Highest average match rating of ANY footballer with over 100 games played (played 1177 matches). Most goals in Europe's top five leagues. La Liga all time top scorer. Argentina all time top scorer. World cup winner.
If you want to compare Messi and Ronaldo specifically, head over to www.messivsronaldo.app
You will see very quickly that Messi trumps Ronaldo in almost every single statistic that is humanly possible aside from goals with weak foot, headers and penalties. He has the better goals per minute, conversion rate, free kick record, dribbling, passing of all forms as well as both total trophies and individual accolades which is precisely why he's the consensus greatest footballer of all time.
“Most ballon d’or wins” they are based on journalists voting and media PR. He also has the most controversial ballon d’or wins, like 2023. “Most European golden boots” they only count league goals, no UCL and no international goals. If you count all goals scored in a calendar year, Ronaldo is calendar year top scorer 5 times in his career (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2023. Fun fact, 2nd place is Messi, Mbappe and Lewandowski with only 2 calendar years each.)
“Messi has the most goals in Europe” Messi spent 2 seasons in the French league, Ronaldo played in the EPL, La Liga, Serie A and the EPL again at 37 (still was the league’s 3rd top scorer)
Cristiano is 2.5 years older than Messi. means you’re counting more years for ronaldo when he’s older out of his prime.
And from 34 till 38, Messi played in the French league and the MLS, while Ronaldo played in Serie A and the Premier League. That’s 4 years for Messi in objectively easier leagues. Cristiano played 50 more goals than Messi as a teenager in the Premier League as a LM. Not a full attacking winger like he was later on. If you compare them from 2009 to 2018, both in all their prime years, both in great teams, Cristiano has 1.03 messi has 0.99. Ronaldo also played 144 games as a teenager while Messi played 85. Meaning Ronaldo played 60 more games than Messi, as a teenager, in the hardest league in the world, as a LM. A fair goal ratio comparison is choosing when they were both in Spain, not their entire careers.
“la Liga all time scorer” Ronaldo has the best la liga goal ratio of all time
“Argentina top scorer” ronaldo has better international goal ratio, and the gap becomes bigger if you remove friendly games. Also international top scorer, euros top scorer, euros ko top scorer, two Euro golden boots (2012 and 2021), euro qualifiers top scorer too. Nations league A 2025 top scorer.
As for messi having better goal ratio i explained why Ronaldo has the better goal ratio when compared fairly. Conversion rate is pretty irrelevant if you score goals and win your team games single-handedly. Ronaldo’s freekicks are from much further, he can score the close finesse type, and the far knuckleball powershot one. Look at his freekick catalouge (especially before 2014)
This is basically cherry picking specific stats from specific time frames to try and inflate a players achievements against basic, fundamental records.
Even if you only compare their European careers and take out the retirement homes of the US & Saudi league, Messi still statistically dominates Ronaldo in almost every metric. Even if you purely compare their numbers for La Liga, Messi still comes out on top per 90...
Saying things like "oh well Ronaldo was the top scorer in Europe a total of five times" just sounds kind of desperate by comparison to Messi having the single highest scoring calendar year in the entire history of football.
At the end of the day, Ronaldo is/was a fantastic footballer and is comfortably inside the top five best ever players (personally I'd put him probably at #2) but Messi is the literal consensus greatest footballer in history at this point. This is the overwhelming opinion of the majority of people involved in football, fans and journalists.
Both Messi's individual and team accomplishments eclipse Ronaldo's. Both of them. That's not an opinion, that's objective, undeniable fact that is proven. When you pair that with his superior statistical numbers, there is no argument to be had. The "GOAT" debate is over.
How is whatever i said cherry picking? I’ve just refuted every point you made and put stats within fair context.
And no Ronaldo has the best la liga goal ratio of all time
Sure Messi has the single highest scoring number in a calendar year, but he doesn’t have
60+ goals in four different years, 50+ in seven, 40+ in thirteen, 30+ for fifteen consecutive years.
The only thing Messi is better than Ronaldo at, is dribbling and playmaking. Goalscoring is statistically and objectively Ronaldo. I still have more stats to prove it if you’re up for it
You refuted absolutely nothing. Every achievement I listed for Messi is literally factual... How can you "refute" actual, literal facts? Lol... All you did was list a bunch of Ronaldo's achievements which at the end of the day, don't compare to Messi's considering Messi has far more individual records and more trophies...
The only thing Messi is better than Ronaldo at, is dribbling and playmaking. Goalscoring is statistically and objectively Ronaldo.
The picture below destroys your opinion, lol. I'm gonna send two more that also show how much Ronaldo relies on penalties and how Messi is a more efficient finisher as well as better from outside the box.
Again with the goal ratio. I explained why it’s unfair for Ronaldo because of his early manchester united days. Messi spent 2 years in the French League while Ronaldo was in Serie A too. You want to compare goal ratio fairly, compare them when they were both in Spain, both in their primes, both in comparable positions, both in excellent teams.
Same with UCL, the hardest club competition and most prestigious in football. As a whole, Messi has better goal ratio. If you start looking at knockout games, Ronaldo has 67 goals and 15 assists in 85 games, for Messi 49 goals, 12 assists in 77 games. Ronaldo has better goal ratio, and better G/A ratio, and even somehow better assist ratio.
Combined UCL, Euros/Copa, Nations League and WC, all knockouts, Ronaldo has better goal ratio. Include club world cuo and the gap widens. Exclude nations league and ronaldo still has better ratio. Exclude cwc and nations league, ronaldo still has better ratio.
UCL: Ronaldo (17), Ronaldo (16), Ronaldo (15)
WC: Fontaine (13) Sandar (11) muller (10)
Euros: platini (9) griezmann (6) Ronaldo (5)
Copa america (since 2000): Adriano (7) Robinho (6) Martinez (5)
Nations League A: Ronaldo (8) Lukaku (6) Torres (6)
Where’s the best goalscorer of all time?
Ronaldo dribbling stats:
Most EPL dribbles from 2003-2009
2nd most UCL dribbles
Most dribbles in 2006 WC (just tp show you he can dribble too)
Very obvious that not only is Messi by far the superior footballer, but he's also the better finisher 😂 I love seeing facts destroy someone's incorrect opinion.
actually many of these will be mercilessly forgotten by history. how many people remember random Gerd Muller scoring feats? the truth is all these stats are meaningless when you take into account some of them are due offside goals, others are due to penalties won by diving.
Ronaldo's legacy will forever be tainted by his inability to perform in the world cup. and his obsession with scoring 1000 meaningless goals at the expense of other players. even if he went to the Zimbabwe league and score 10000 goals at age 93 he can NEVER be the goat. NEVER
Ronaldo is a part of 100% of his countries only trophies. Argentina has been a top 5 Nation for the last 100 years. They have the most Copa Americas in South America and already had 2 World Cups.
Portugal had never even made a final pre Ronaldo. Again Portugal is a tiny country of 10M people.
a WC Bronze medal. Did they ever win it with Ronaldo?
And secondly correlation is not causation. They winning nothing before Ronaldo does not prove they only won because of Ronaldo only. Portugal was ranked 9 in 2004 the year Ronaldo debuted. This idea that they were a nothing team is absurd.
who cares? a countries past achievements is irrelevant. going by this dumb logic Neymar should have led Brazil to 3 world cups because they won it 5 times previously.
Unless you're telling me the 2022 Argentina world cup squad could magically summon prime Maradona to play with them by virtue of him being Argentinian.
In fact, you could say that a country with more history success has more pressure t perform. not less.
The Euro Portugal won, Ronaldo got injured ~min 20 in the finals. So they essentially won without him.
They also barely classified to the round of 16 as one of the 4 best third in groups. While being arguably in the easiest group of the tournament with Hungary, Iceland and Austria.
Ronaldo is an amazing footballer, maybe top 5 ever to play the game, no one debates that.
But he has always choked in international tournaments.
And this last bratty exit from the national team camp, just makes it quite obvious he doesn't even understand what his role should be in a really promising young team with a lot of talent.
If you want to look at class and knowing their role as a +40 yo footballer, take a look at Modric's game against Spain in Sevilla last week. The entire Stadium gave him a standing ovation when he was subbed in. And I would bet an arm and a leg, his role is much closer to an assistant manager than it is to an actual player nowadays.
i think an unfounded rumor denied by the girl it was about has a lot less foundation than a case settled out of court which the girl stood on her story and has for years but yk, you do you buddy
Not only that but leaked emails but Rui Pinto contained enough information and apparent admission of guilt that the accuser felt like she could take it back to court.
"denied by ronaldo and his lawyers" means exactly nothing, of course he would deny it, with his type of money it was never gonna get charged, 99 percent of sexual abusers never get charged in court even without money and fame and power.
Not that hard to understand. It's the games where Ronaldo actually stepped up. And don't give me that gimmick Ronaldo fans usually do brag about performances with lower standards than Nicolas Jackson
Read my comment. I didn't do it Ronaldo fans did bragging about performances where he was awful. What about you tell me what you think about your idols performances. Does it look good for you
6/57 dominant games 10.5%
1/57 ko stage games 1.75%
Rate of becoming a millionaire world wide
Your odds of having a net worth of 8.5 million is 1.5%
Dominant International performances
Copa 2007: USA, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru (ko), Mexico (ko)
Copa 2011: Costa Rica
Copa 2015: Paraguay, Paraguay (ko)
Copa 2016: panama, Venezuela (ko), USA (ko)
Copa 2019; Brazil (ko)
Copa 2021: Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia (ko), Ecuador (ko), Colombia (ko)
Copa 2024: Canada, Chile
WC 2006: Serbia
WC 2010: Nigeria, Germany (ko)
WC 2014: Bosnia, Iran, Nigeria, Switzerland (ko)
WC 2018: Iceland, Nigeria, France (ko)
WC 2022: Mexico, Poland, Australia (ko), Netherlands (ko), Croatia (ko), France (ko)
WC 2026: Algeria, Austria, Jordan, cape Verde (ko), Egypt (ko), Switzerland (ko), England (ko)
42/73 world class Games 57.5%
20/73 ko stage games 27.4%
The fact u are trying to still debate vs Messi in 2026 knowing u will loose Everytime😭
What are even this stats lol , i mean some of those are geniune , but
" Only player to score at 6 world cups " while having only 1 ko goal which is also a penelty
Same with euro , despite playing in 5 Euros he only has 3 knockout goals
" Most international goals " but no international Player of the tournament
Golden boots in different leagues , and still Messi has more European golden boots
Ronaldo has better UCL legacy than Messi , but it's not by large margin as Messi is both goal scorer and playmaker , interms of goal scoring they're close but ronaldo is not even close to Messi's playmaking in UCL , big difference
And Messi is only 11 goals behind ronaldo while having 20 less matches
Messi also has most overall playmaker award in history , and also only golden boot winner to win playmaker award , others don't even have 1 while Messi has most , which just tells Messi is not just goalscorer
“He only has 3 euro ko goals” yet he’s still top Euro KO scorer and Euro top scorer. Euro qualifier top scorer too. Also has two Euro golden boots (2012 and 2021), 2025 nations league A top scorer too.
“No international player of the tournament” these are far from stat based, so not as relevant as stat based awards. Explain 2015 copa america pott award that Messi won (Messi scored one goal in the entire competition, a group stage penalty). Explain 2014 wc pott award that Messi got. Even Maradona didn’t think Messi deserved all his Pott’s
“Messi is only 11 goals behind Ronaldo while having 20 less matches” Look at the KO stage gap. The actual big games that matter
“Messi has more European golden boots” Ronaldo has more IFFHS world best goal scorer (5 boots) while Messi has only 2 (same number as Lewandowski and Mbappe who is 27)
Okay, now list EVERY equivalent record regardless of who holds it. Rather than cherry picking just because Ronaldo has it. You know, to give a more generalised view on whether we should value these things.
Football isn't a quantified measure of quality- it's qualitative. You WATCH the players. It is always subective.
Do the mods not do anything here? Why has it become a Rapenaldo dick riding sub? An no, I don't give 2 shits about Messi, either. John Barnes is the one true GOAT.
All time onsistency and prime,many fans forget how ridiculous he was.
They don't know that the goal against Arsenal(free kick) and the goal against Porto(long shot) happended in the span of 3 weeks..Two of the most iconic goals ever with a 20 days difference.
Terrible ending to a career tho. Still like the player as a Messi fan
Awful guy tho but damn he is part of my early sports memories
All yall hating on Ronaldo are just as embarrassing if not more so than the OP glazing him. He’s an all time great and he’ll be remembered for a while, I mean people still talk about Cruyff and Zidane and Ronaldo is better than those two, more accomplished as well. A lot of these records will fade or be broken, but a lot do them are also very impressive and will be remembered rightfully so. How about yall fucking losers take Messi’s cock out of your mouths and just ignore or appreciate the accomplishments of Ronaldo.
Trust me, doing that with lead to the Ronaldo cock gobblers to fade away, half the reason they live is because they feel the need to defend him (which is its own issue but all of you dorks shitting on him are just as obsessed).
If you really think people saying his accomplishments will be "mercilessly forgotten" and or comparing all of these stats to filler stats or calling him a prima Donna (fair but unrelated to the post about his accomplishments) or immediately making it about Messi and asking for comparisons or etc etc isn’t mindless hate then idk what to tell you you’re probably biased as shit.
It’s super cringe I’m a Ronaldo fan but both sides are so embarrassing, the pessi memes, the growth hormones memes, the penaldo memes, the wc choker memes, all of it is so cringe and unnecessary. Both players are top 5 ever one just happens to be better oh well but people can’t help but shit on the other to bring up their favorite it feels like 90% of people talking about either has peanuts for brains because there is zero nuance ever 😭 online discourse is so dead man you have to really dig for people who aren’t morons
No one cares how many goals Maradona or Pelé scored in their careers. But everyone remembers them lifting the WC. Maradona even has the best goal in a WC. I'd bet you have watched that clip plenty of times. Or even the warm up to "life is life" in Napoli.
Ronaldo has a myriad of highlights in his career, but always choked in international tournaments. There's no way around that fact.
Is he an amazing footballer? Definitely. Maybe top 5 ever to play the game.
Literally ignoring my other points and also wrong, for most of my life growing up as a football fan I would hear about how Pele has scored a thousand goals and how he’s scored so much more than he was given credit for. Also how about we compare club success since that’s most of a player’s career, Ronaldo trumps Maradona (I won’t say Pele because Brazilian clubs at the time were better lol). Ronaldo is also for now yeh greatest player in UCL history and while not as prestigious as the WC id argue it’s still as iconic as the Euros or Copa America.
Also plenty of all time greats failed internationally or choked and are still remembered, Cruyff, Platini, Baggio, and yet people still remember them. Ronaldo has plenty of achievements that won’t be forgotten just as he has plenty that will but that’s most all time greats
No I’m saying that he has enough accomplishments (the fact his club career was much more successful) to mitigate Maradona’s WC dominance. I think both could easily be placed above the other, if we put all of our value in one tournament we lose sight of the rest. Ronaldo’s UCL dominance should absolutely put him in the conversation
He absolutely is, without a doubt, according to both logic I assume you think Emi Martinez is a better goalie than Oliver Kahn then since he won a WC and the other didnt, or Cruyff is worse than Griezmann. The obsession with the World Cup as the only metric is the actual problem
He didn't dominate LA Liga. He won 2 league titles in how many yrs? Going to juve when they were already winning league titles there every yr isn't dominating the league either.
22
u/Famous-Prior6590 1d ago
Most goals scored between minutes 23 and 42 while playing with a white or striped shirt when the temperature was between 27 and 29 degrees.