Alejandro Panfil - @alepanfil
We have been talking about the brilliant skills of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two biggest soccer players on the planet, for more than a decade and a half. And, of course, the battle lines have been drawn between those who say that the Argentinean is the current best player of the world and maybe the best ever, and those who believe that Cristiano Ronaldo is at the top of soccer. But for many others, the question remains: which one is the best.
Let’s take a look at these athletic monsters and see if we can put an end to this debate. The Argentinean is a one-club man, which means he has had enormous success wearing only the jersey of FC Barcelona. The Portuguese star showed his tremendous and very effective goal power in different teams: Sporting Clube de Portugal, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus.
Messi (33 years old) and Cristiano Ronaldo (35) shared a brilliant decade of fierce competition in the Spanish League since 2009, when Cristiano signed for Real Madrid – Messi was already playing for Barcelona-. But even before they disputed LaLiga, the clashes in the international context were always at hand. They had had two intense confrontations in the UEFA Champions League that had left them tied: in the 2008 semifinals, Manchester United beat Barcelona and reached the final in Moscow where they won against Chelsea. The following year, Messi would get his revenge over CR7 at the final in Rome.
But this rivalry really began in 2009 and it certainly helped shape these two players into the soccer stars they are today. During the next decade, they transformed the Clásico Barcelona vs. Real Madrid into the most important match to watch in the entire world. They played 30 clásicos against each other. CR7 won 8, tied 8 and was beaten 14 times by Messi´s Barcelona. Messi’s numbers seemed to seal the deal here and proclaim him the N°1, especially if we take into account that Messi scored 19 goals whilst Ronaldo scored 18 in those matches. In terms of titles, “La Pulga” has won 10 Spanish leagues, 6 Copa del Rey, 8 Spanish Super Cup, 4 Champions League, 3 UEFA Super Cup and 3 World Cup Club. We can also add his titles at the junior level with the Argentinean National team: 1 world cup U-20 and 1 goal medal in Beijing 2008. In total, he logged 868 appearances, scored 704 goals and won 36 titles.
CR7 confirmed during his Spanish period that he is one of the current biggest stars of this sport, but he built a great career in different teams. In total, he won 31 titles: 3 English Premier League, 3 English Premier League, 1 FA Cup, 2 Football League Cup, 1 FA Community Shield; 2 Spanish League, 2 Copa del Rey, 2 Spanish Super Cup; 2 Italian League, 1 Italian Super Cup; 1 Portuguese Super Cup; 5 Champions League, 4 World Cup Clubs and 2 UEFA Super Cup. With his national team he’s won 1 Toulon Youth Cup (junior level), 1 UEFA Nations League and 1 European Nations Championship. He played 1014 games and scored 737 goals.
As shown, Messi has more titles than Ronaldo and confirms his reign. But we can still take a look into their individual awards, the most important of which is the FIFA The Best, which Messi has been awarded six times (no player has ever won this award so many times) and Cristiano has received it 5 times.
Though numbers show that they are both soccer giants, Ronaldo seems to be only one step behind Messi. Nevertheless, someone might say that Cristiano is still the best because he’s won more Champions Leagues and 2 major titles with his national team. Others may suggest Messi is the best because of his skills, goals, titles and also the influence that he has on his team’s approach to the game. Messi is more involved in the ball distribution, and his team needs him to create opportunities to score because he is a lot more than just a goal scorer like Cristiano Ronaldo. During the first years in Barcelona, it was said that Messi played well and scored many goals thanks to Xavi Hernandez and Andrés Iniesta, “the real minds of Barcelona”. But nowadays, when Barcelona is no longer a brilliant team like the Guardiola or Luis Enrique’s squads, Messi continues to show that he helps Barcelona win, even with a bad team performance. Of course, not against Bayern Munich…
Cristiano Ronaldo is, for sure, a brilliant scorer and he is always capable of taking personal profit from the chaos: he scored 2 goals against Olympique Lyonnais-the second one was truly fantastic- but it was not enough to help Juventus reach the Champions League ¼ finals 2020. La Vecchia Signora has won nine consecutive Serie A championships, and Cristiano won his second league in a row since he decided to move to Turin. That indicates that the Portuguese star could easily win more and more local leagues. But nowadays, the world of soccer feels that he can’t provide solutions to Juventus in the international context, especially regarding his main personal obsession, the Champions League.
But, in order to avoid any traces of subjectivity, last year, scientists of Belgium KU Leuven University, with the Dutch data intelligence company SciSports, developed a model that maps all the actions of Messi and Ronaldo and their impact on the development of the game and not only the goals and assists. The research, focused on the 2013-2014 and 2017-2018 Spanish League seasons, has provided a formula to make a comparison between the cracks under the name VAEP (Valuing Actions by Estimating Probabilities). Based on that formula, these scientists concluded that Messi is the best. “A goal is a rare event because it is estimated that an average of 1,600 actions occur at a match. Our model sees every action (shots, passes, dribbles, steals) and from there its value is calculated", explained Professor Jesse Davis.
Both Messi and CR7 agree that the rivalry between them was the motivational impulse that made them aim higher. Ronaldo once stated that at a very young age he had understood that soccer was numbers, titles, records and goals. So if we take his definition of the sport, there is no doubt that Messi is the best player, but only by a very narrow margin.
However, this is still a running battle between the two athletes, so let’s not settle the argument yet.