The clash between Messi and Ronaldo both on and off the football field is one of the biggest rivalries in the history of this sport.
Of course, the two players have a fantastic relationship, and one could even call them friends when they are not playing against each other. However, when they are competing, they turn into the fiercest of opponents.
Moreover, since they are two of the most popular football players in the world right now, they have armies of loyal fans who follow them wherever they play. There is one thing they cannot come to an agreement on: who the winner of the Best Footballer title is.
We have set out to try to help them come to a conclusion and answer this incredibly complicated question. One of the tools we have is Betting-Sites' infographic, which compares the two players and shares important information about their achievements. Let’s dig in!
The Basics
First of all, it is important to learn about the basics and learn who Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are. Messi was born in Argentina, in 1987, which makes him 32 years old at the moment. Ronaldo is two years older, as he was born in 1985, in Portugal.
One big difference between them is that Messi has played for just one team his whole life, Barcelona.
Ronaldo is willing to take more chances and risks in order to find the perfect team that plays on par with his skills. At the moment, he is playing for Juventus, but before that he played for Real Madrid and Manchester United.
When it comes to their family lives, both of them seem to prefer large families. Messi is married and has three children, whereas Ronaldo has four children, even though he is still unmarried.
Biggest Sports Accomplishments
It’s no wonder that the rivalry between Messi and Ronaldo is so heated, as their stats and accomplishments on the field are very similar.
For example, the Golden Ball, which is the biggest award a football player can receive in their career, has been given five times to Messi and four times to Ronaldo. That is not a big difference at all, as one successful year for Ronaldo can bring them to a draw.
However, when it comes to team honors, Messi has a more significant lead. He has won 21 team honors with Barcelona thus far, whereas Ronaldo has won 15 with his teams.
This lead is partly due to the fact that Barcelona has always been much more popular than the teams Ronaldo has played for, so it’s not solely Messi’s achievement.
But, when it comes to individual honors and world records, there can be excuses. Messi has 15 individual honors and holds 15 records, whereas Ronaldo holds 13 of each. It’s not a significant lead, but it shows us that Messi’s efforts on the field are more noticeable.
How Do Their Football Skills Stack Up?
Honors are important, but they are not always the most realistic representation of players’ skills on the field. Instead, we should take a look at what Messi and Ronaldo can do on the field, by analyzing some stats that are available to us.
For example, their global penalty success rate is similar but works more in Ronaldo’s favor. Namely, in his entire professional career, Ronaldo has scored 109 penalty goals and missed 23, which puts his success rate at 82.58%.
On the other hand, Messi has a success rate of 77.14% with 81 scored penalty kicks and 24 misses. But, things are not so black and white. If we watch Messi and Ronaldo on the field, we can see that each of them is good at something the other player lacks in.
For example, Ronaldo is much taller than Messi, so he is much more successful when it comes to headers. Messi’s short stature does not come without an advantage, as he is faster and much better at dribbling.
However, in the end, we can conclude that Ronaldo has a better average shooting accuracy, as he scores more goals on average per game.
The War for Social Media Domination
We live in an age where it is almost impossible to be a celebrity of any kind without being active on various social media services. The three most popular ones that most public persons are competing for popularity on, including Messi and Ronaldo, are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
As we all know, Ronaldo is one of the most active football players on social media. He loves attention and loves being in the center of it. Therefore, he often posts on all of the most popular social media platforms and has a large number of followers on all of them.
It seems that Messi is not that interested in the newest SM trends, which has negatively impacted his popularity.
To compare the two, Ronaldo has a total of almost 320 million followers on the three of the most popular social media platforms. Messi, on the other hand, has just 181 million, which is almost half as much.
Ronaldo is known to be the ladies’ favorite, thanks to his good looks and a ripped body that he works on a lot. Therefore, his photos and posts usually have a lot of likes and comments. For example, his most popular post on Instagram has 11.3 million likes and 157 thousand comments.
Messi’s most popular post has just 6.4 million likes and just 52 thousand comments. It seems like Messi could learn a trick or two from Ronaldo about taking selfies.
Conclusion
Now that you have read our thorough analysis, you can hopefully understand a bit better why it is so difficult to decide who is the winner in the battle between Messi and Ronaldo.
Each of them has some unique characteristics and skills that the other one does not. Therefore, we could conclude that both of them are winners, even though their respective fans will certainly not agree with us.
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