Two of the best - but who's better?
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are without doubt the two best professional football players on the planet at the moment. Ronaldo has scored 46 goals in 51 games this seaon for Real Madrid in all competitions and is currently the leading goalscorer in La Liga with 33 goals in 31 games. He has 10 assists in all competitions too and is the focal point of the majority of Real Madrid attacks. Lionel Messi on the other other hand has scored 49 goals in 51 games and is currently second place in the race for the Pachichi with 31 goals in 32 games.The Argentine also has an incredible 25 assists in all competitions for Barcelona this season.
Real Madrid currently trail Barcelona in the league by 8 points with 3 games to go, and Barcelona can claim their 3rd successive La Liga crown with a draw next weekend, and are in the Champions League Final at Wembley where they will face Ronaldo's former club Manchester United. This season, Real Madrid have won the Copa Del Rey (beating Barcelona 1-0 AET in the final) and went out in the semi-finals to Barcelona (3-1 agg) in the Champions League.
Both players have played in all 5 'El Clasico' matches this season. Ronaldo has 2 goals and 0 assists in those 5 games, while Messi has 3 goals and 2 assists in the 5 games. When you look at the stats alone, Messi is greater but what about when you go in depth?
Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo has been in superb form for Real Madrid this season, and the main reason for this is the brilliance of Jose Mourinho. Although Ronaldo was a massive success in his first season at the Bernabeu, Mourinho has move him over to the left hand side and given his fellow countryman a free role to drift along the frontline and cause havoc, and it has worked very well. The fluidity of Real Madrid's front line has helped Ronaldo to score a record amount of goals and win his first trophy at the club in his 2 year spell at the club.
With Ronaldo constantly drifting from the left hand side to cut in and shoot or to pick up the ball in another position, it allowed Marcelo to cause havoc too. Ronaldo is the focal point of all Madrid attacks. At home, they like to control the game and he is usually the first man Xabi Alonso and Mesut Ozil look for when they have the ball and averages 4.4 shots per game this season. Real Madrid have scored 87 league goals this season, and Ronaldo has 33 of those goals, with the nearest man to him in the Real Madrid team being Karim Benzema with 12 - showing his clear superiority within the Real Madrid team.
Records Broken
Ronaldo this season broke an incredible record for Real Madrid, surpassing the great Brazilian Ronaldo, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo Di Stefano. Cristiano Ronaldo reached 66 goals for Real Madrid in 62 games for the 9 time European Champions. It took Ruud Van Nistelrooy 92 games and the Brazilian Ronaldo 94 games to reach the same feat for the same club.
Ronaldo is currently on 33 league goals for the club this season, with 3 games to go in the campaign. The league record held by Telmo Zarra and Hugo Sanchez is 38 goals, so Ronaldo is still capable of breaking that record this season. He is also the man with the most hat-tricks in a single season in La Liga for Real Madrid, having scored 5 hat-tricks this season (vs Racing Santander, vs Athletic Bilbao, vs Villarreal, vs Malaga, vs Sevilla), including 2 four goal hauls (Racing Santander and Sevilla).
Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi's form has continued on from his amazing season last season. He bagged 47 goals last year and this year so far has bagged 49 (52 if you count his hat-trick in the Super Cup Final). He has 25 assists in all competitions and this all comes from him playing through the middle of Barcelona's traditional front 3. Pep Guardiola made the decision after playing him through the middle for a short period last season when Zlatan Ibrahimovic wasn't firing and he managed to end his season with a total bettered only around Europe by Uruguayan forward Luis Suarez who had 49 goals last year for Ajax.
Messi has been playing as a Deep Lying Forward (False 9) but without anyone ahead of him which is why it's so difficult to pick him up. His amazing dribbling abilities and sensational strength for a small man make his feats even more incredible. While he is also capable of starting out on the wing with David Villa playing through the middle, and with Pedro, Iniesta, Xavi and Dani Alves all attacking too - Barcelona don't rely on him nearly as much. Barcelona's play revolves around the short passing of Xavi and the running of Iniesta and Messi. Barcelona have scored 91 league goals this season, and Messi has 31 of those goals while he has assisted another 18 of them.
Broken Records
Messi broke some records this season too, although his were more nationwide than within the team. If you count the hat-trick he scored in the Super Cup final second leg - the Argentine magician has scored 52 goals this season in all competitions, surpassing the 49 goals scored by Ferenc Puskas.
In the year 2010, Lionel Messi scored his 100th and his 150th goals for Barcelona, as well as winning his second straight Ballon D'or and World Player of the Year award. Scarily, at the age of just 23, Messi is already Barcelona's 3rd all time highest goalscorer behind just Kubala and Cesar.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Ronaldo and Messi are very similar players, however both players have different kinds of weaknesses. Both are incredible dribblers of the ball, with incredible speed and a fantastic ability to score goals from wherever they are on the pitch.
Ronaldo possesses the better physical stats, standing at over 6 foot tall and being very muscular as well as having phenomenal power to shoot with both feet and an incredible ability to leap and head the ball with great power and accuracy. Messi on the other hand possesses a greater first touch, a better centre of gravity as well as being strong enough to ride tackles. Another thing about Messi is the fact that he doesn't complain when he's fouled or go down easily, which is one of Cristiano Ronaldo's biggest criticism's.
Another thing that is clear for everyone to see between them is that Ronaldo has a massive ego, while Lionel Messi is as humble as pie. Eidur Gudjohnsen put it perfectly while recently doing some punditry for Sky Sports;
"When you're around Ronaldo, you know you're in the presence of a superstar. With Messi, he's just any young player who wants to get better and better - even though he's already one of - if not THE the best."
Another difference between the two is the paths their career's have taken. Cristiano Ronaldo has played for 3 different clubs, raking in a mass £92.75M in transfer fees over his career (£12.75M from Sporting to Manchester United, and £80M from Manchester United to Real Madrid). When Ronaldo was at Sporting, he wasn't in the first team regularly but everyone knew he was going to be a star. He played in a pre-season friendly vs Manchester United and totally battered them. At that point, Sir Alex Ferguson made the decision to sign him. The Portugal captain then plied his trade at Old Trafford for 6 years (03-09) and went from flairy teenager, to best player in the world. He played 292 games for Manchester United in all competitions, scoring 118 goals and getting 61 assists. During his time there, he won 3 Premier League Titles, 1 Champions League, 1 FA Cup, 2 League Cups, 1 Community Shield and 1 World Club Cup. He then signed for Manuel Pellegrini's Real Madrid, fulfilling a lifelong dream, and hit the ground running. He made a massive impact in his first season at the club, and although it ended trophyless - he bagged 33 goals in 35 games and 6 assists in his debut season, showing he can adapt to any league and still be prolific.
Lionel Messi on the other hand, joined Barcelona at the age of 12 and has come up through 'La Masia' and coming up alongside players such as Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta, Samuel Eto'o, Giovani Dos Santos, Bojan and others. He's been involved in the Barcelona set up since before he was a teenager and even in the youth team he was the focal point of everything due to his incredible talent for such a young player. He made his first team debut as a substitute in the Catalunia derby vs Espanyol at the tender age of 17 years and 114 days. He has played 267 times for Barcelona since that day, and has scored 179 goals for Barcelona - their 3rd highest goalscorer of all time.
Conclusion
For me, Cristiano Ronaldo is the more complete player of the two. His strength, and all around attacking player is just amazing. However, Lionel Messi is the better professional and team player. If you want someone who can play the team game perfectly, while being capable of coming up with moments of magic when necessary, the Messi is your guy. Whereas if you want a player who can score all types of goals, all the time regardless of where he's playing and just a pure powerhouse with some of the fanciest footwork ever, then Ronaldo is your guy. Messi is without doubt one of the greatest players to ever grace a football pitch, with Ronaldo alongside him. In my opinion however, and I know a lot of people won't agree with me - Ronaldo just edges him. He's shown it on every stage possible, scoring at World Cups, Champions League finals, cup finals in England and Spain and setting up goals too. For me the fact he did it on different stages says leaps about him, and until Messi is out of his comfort zone doing what he does it's hard to see him leaping Ronaldo in my eyes.
But that's just my opinion...
World Players of the Year 2008, 2009, 2010
MESSI IS NOTHING COMPARED TO RONALDO............
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