Messi vs Ronaldo
Analysis of the two greatest players of modern and possibly all time
Who is better? Who is the greatest? This debate could rumble on and on and on. Here at Coachability we thought we would look into the stats of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, to see which player comes out on top.
Appearance/Goals For Country:
Messi 138/70
Ronaldo 164/99
Messi has scored 29 goals fewer than Ronaldo, however Ronaldo has played 26 games more. To decide the winner we need to work out how many minutes between each goal.
Messi scores every 177 minutes
Ronaldo scores every 149 minutes
RONALDO WINS
Appearance/Goals For Club:
Messi 750/638
Ronaldo 838/626
In terms of total goals scored, not much separates the two players (Messi has 12 more goals). It’s worth remembering Ronaldo was employed as a winger by Sporting Lisbon and Manchester United before being turned into lethal centre forward at Real Madrid.
MESSI WINS
Assits For Club:
Messi 306
Ronaldo 219
Messi is the clear winner here with 77 more assists than Ronaldo.
MESSI WINS
Assists For Country:
Messi 45
Ronaldo 38
Little between the two players here, but Messi has 7 more assists than Ronaldo. You could argue that Ronaldo has fewer assists because he was scoring goals rather than providing passes for his teammates to score.
MESSI WINS
Major Club Trophies:
Messi 34 (10 league titles, 4 champions league)
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Ronaldo 27 (6 league titles, 5 champions league)
Messi has won an incredible 10 league titles with Barcelona. Messi comes out on top winning 7 more major club trophies than Ronaldo.
MESSI WINS
Major Countries Trophies (Excludes under age tournaments i.e U20 World Cup):
Messi 0
Ronaldo 2 (UEFA European Championship & UEFA Nations League)
2019 turned transpired to be a defining moment for Ronaldo, winning his 1st major tournament for country and following it up with winning the UEFA nations league.
RONALDO WINS
Winner Of The FIFA Ballon d’Or:
Messi 6
Ronaldo 5
Messi and Ronaldo have won 11 of the last 12 Ballon d’Ors. Luca Modric is the only other player to have won the award since 2007. Messi comes out on top by 1.
MESSI WINS
Lastly, between 2009–10 and 2017–18 season, Messi and Ronaldo played in the same league, La Liga, for two great rivals, Barcelona and Real Madrid. Undoubtedly that 9 year period was when both players were in their peak. So lets just analysis this period.
Appearances/Goals:
Messi 497/510
Ronaldo 438/450
Over the 9 year period both players incredibly scored at a rate of more than a goal per game, that has never been seen before at the highest level and will never likely be replicated.
To decide the winner we need to work out how many minutes between each goal.
Messi 87.7 minutes per goal
Ronaldo 87.6 minutes per goal
Wow! Almost identical!! But by 0.1 minutes…
RONALDO WINS
OVERALL (Who won the most categories?)
MESSI 5
RONALDO 3
WINNER MESSI!!
