@Rozay what percentage of Luis Ronaldo's goals were screamers from 40 yards or dribbles past Maldini and Nesta? I mean if these are the goals that count, not those useless tap ins and headers, it would be nice to know how Luiz Ronaldo really stacks up in this category.
I'm not going to go compiling such stats, but you would only need to watch a compilation of his goals and general play to see how he (R9) played and approached the game, and how he attacked the opponents goal. He had a completely different style, which CR7 long lost the ability to try, as he can barely go past anyone at all. R9 was a Gazelle, he shimmied, he picked up the ball on the half-way line and was immediately a threat from there. He also scored hundreds of goals, and this is how they often came about.
Probably best I let the man himself answer you though. Look at this video of one seasons goals at Barca. Count the tap-ins for yourself. The below video is as a 19/20 year old too. He was a natural. At the same age, CR7 was still 'frustrating'.
As for the 'numbers' argument, his goals record was still very very impressive, for teams that did not dominate in the same way. He played a lot of European football for Barca and Inter in the UEFA Cup, today's Europa League - indication enough that his teams were not dominant. Jose himself said of his time in Madrid that he didn't like it as he only had '4 games a year - Barcelona twice, Atletico twice'. These are the conditions CR7 racked up such numbers. Games that ended 5-0 every week. Unbalanced TV money and lack of competition.
R9 would have also got more goals if defenders in his era were not allowed to resort to this to stop him:
That's the likes of Thuram, Maldini and co in that video.
There's a reason Henry was considered better than RVN, for example. Both 'scored goals'. One, however, was capable of far more with a ball. That's it really. Otherwise there would be a million world class strikers (not that CR7 and RVN were not). Every league has players who score lots of goals. Every era has players who scored loads. There must be a way to differentiate.
I know it's also been said, but the quality of defenders has declined massively too. See the below video, and look at the names R9 played against regularly, and how helpless they looked, not just to stop him 'scoring' but just breezing past them:
I could post videos of R9 all day, it in my opinion, anyone who thinks CR7 is better than him has no footballing soul to me. We are in an era where perhaps fans feel more and more like locker room coaches or something, and pull up whiteboards and head to sqaukwa or wherever to have any football debate, but if football is in your heart, there is no competition.
Literally, the only argument anyone can use to counter that CR7 was better is to simply say 'this number is bigger than that number'. The unanimous response in this thread has been that Messi is the best since Maradona, or ever, and I don't think anyone has felt the need to make that argument using numbers, as ridiculous as his numbers are. In fact, the ridiculousness of his numbers gets overlooked in my opinion, mainly due to the fact that he's so brilliant. All you hear of CR7 is how many he scored, as that's all he has had for years. I see more clips of Messi floating around on Twitter every week of him doing things other than scoring than of his goals. And there were probably 3 of those that week too.
