Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo: Stats Show That Barcelona Star Has Outperformed His Rival This Decade
Barcelona icon, Lionel Messi and Juventus superstar, Cristiano Ronaldo are widely considered as two of the greatest players in the history of the sport, with the duo dominating football for more than a decade as seen by them winning a combine 11 Ballon d'Or awards between them so far.
Despite both the players getting on in terms of age, the duo enjoyed brilliant individual seasons with Messi becoming only the second player to score 20 goals and registering 20 assists in a single league season while Ronaldo for his part netted 31 goals in the Serie A as he led the Bianconeri to the league title.
WhoScored.com use a diverse range of defensive, offensive and passing data-sets to calculate ratings out of 10 for each player in every game, which is ultimately averaged out across the term and as per the data Messi outperformed his great rival quite comfortably this season registering a score of 8.7 throughout the whole campaign as compared to Ronaldo who could only get a score of 7.8.
Infact if one looks at their performances since 2010 as per the data given, then Messi clearly comes out on top and has a better average rating in eight of the nine seasons, with the duo having the same score in one campaign - which goes to show that Ronaldo despite his heroics has never outperformed his rival this decade.
Since 14/15 in League football, Lionel Messi has outperformed his weak-foot xG by 24.44%.
— Football Threads ?⚽ (@FootyThreads_) August 3, 2020
Cristiano Ronaldo in this same timeframe has UNDERPERFORMED by -3.74% on his weak-foot.
Another example of the unbiased data favouring Messi, and the good PR favouring Ronaldo.
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2010/11
Lionel Messi - 8.8
Cristiano Ronaldo - 8.3
2011/12
Lionel Messi - 8.9
Cristiano Ronaldo - 8.3
2012/13
Lionel Messi - 8.8
Cristiano Ronaldo - 8.2
2013/14
Lionel Messi - 8.3
Cristiano Ronaldo - 8.3
2014/15
Lionel Messi - 8.8
Cristiano Ronaldo - 8.5
2015/16
Lionel Messi - 8.5
Cristiano Ronaldo - 8.0
2016/17
Lionel Messi - 8.5
Cristiano Ronaldo - 7.6
2017/18
Lionel Messi - 8.7
Cristiano Ronaldo - 7.9
2018/19
Lionel Messi - 8.5
Cristiano Ronaldo - 7.7
2019/20
Lionel Messi - 8.7
Cristiano Ronaldo - 7.8
The above stats just goes to show that Messi wins the Greatest of All-Time claim, but there is no doubt that the fans and pundits are both lucky to see arguably two of the greatest players in history continue to thrill fans with their performances.