Lionel Messi

[MrEleson]

This is the only forum (due to United bias) other than Madrid or Portugal forums where its even close between the two. And still Messi came out on top on. United forum. Says it all really.

Well if that was true, there wouldn't be a universal debate that has raged on for over a decade. Or did the Messi vs. Ronaldo comparisons stem from redcafe? Everywhere else I've looked, Ronaldo has generally been deemed the superior CL player without it being close.

 

[Gehrman]

Personally I agree that Ronaldo is the greatest CL goalscorer of all time. If people want to consider him the GOAT because of that, I think that's fair enough, but it's not my opinon.

 

[VBI]

Ronaldo has ONE more winners medal, and ONE more top scorer award in the CL, and with a poorer goals per game average. (which is something his fans seem to care about in league football but not in European competition, oddly) Sure, he's "done better" but people are talking about the knockout stages as the only thing that matters, like those 7 games are somehow the only ones that matter and the 40+ other games you play in a season don't matter. Reducing the debate down to only goals scored is the SPECIFIC reason why Ronaldo fans think this debate is closer than it actually is in reality. Which is why they do it. "It's not even close" is literally an impossible statement if you are talking about the 1st and 2nd ranked all time scorers ffs, by your OWN criteria. You literally can't get closer than "right behind".

 

[Gehrman]

Ronaldo has ONE more winners medal, and ONE more top scorer award in the CL, and with a poorer goals per game average. (which is something his fans seem to care about in league football but not in European competition, oddly) Sure, he's "done better" but people are talking about the knockout stages as the only thing that matters, like those 7 games are somehow the only ones that matter and the 40+ other games you play in a season don't matter. Reducing the debate down to only goals scored is the SPECIFIC reason why Ronaldo fans think this debate is closer than it actually is in reality. Which is why they do it. "It's not even close" is literally an impossible statement if you are talking about the 1st and 2nd ranked all time scorers ffs, by your OWN criteria. You literally can't get closer than "right behind".

Klose is leagues ahead of Luiz Ronaldo man. Lightning years ahead of Pelé!

Hmm I wonder how many CL trophies and European Cup goals Maradonna has?

 

[VBI]

Klose is leagues ahead of Luiz Ronaldo man. Lightning years ahead of Pelé!

Hmm I wonder how many CL trophies and European Cup goals Maradonna has?

Maradona that bottler, didn't even win a single European Cup.

As an aside, here is a perfect example of why "stats only" arguments don't really work.

2015 CL final, Barca beat Juve 3-1. Messi isn't on the stat book because he didn't score and didn't assist, right? However, if you watch the actual game, you see that for the first Barca goal, Messi collects in midfield during basic possession and spreads an excellent angled pass wide for Alba to start the attack, and 5 or so seconds later the ball is in the net. For the second Barca goal, Messi collects the ball in the centre circle, drives at the Juve defence, goes past a CB and fires in a shot, and Suarez scores from the rebound. For the third Barca goal, Barca clear a late Juve attack, the ball falls to Messi who flicks the ball onto the speeding Neymar which starts the counter attack where he passed it to Pedro who returns it for Neymar's goal. No "statistical" involvement in anything yet key to all 3 goals.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I did and Neymar was better. He simply was.

There is no chance Neymar was better than Messi in the Champions League that season

Messi had a much higher level of performances despite them scoring the same amount of goals.

 

[Manuel Traquete]

That's not a fact, that's an opinion. The fact is that Ronaldo has scored more goals in CL, especially from quarters on. If he was more decisive is debatable. To me he was not for the same reason Eto'o was not more decisive than Ronaldinho, Henry wasn't more decisive than Zidane and Gerd Müller wasn't more decisive than Franz Beckenbauer. Could go on for days like this.

Debatable is a very strong word. I'd say it's undebatably false that there's a direct correlation between scoring more goals and being more decisive. "Decisive" seems to be used here as a buzzword, a proxy for "scored more goals". Indeed, Ronaldinho was far more decisive than Eto'o, Zidane than Henry and Beckenbauer than Muller. And Messi is more "decisive" than Cristiano indeed, whatever that means really, he's just the far superior all-around player with greater influence on games.

The last two United CL finals they were destroyed because Xavi and Iniesta basically ran circles around them in midfield. But by this logic, they weren't as decisive as Eto'o and Pedro, heck 0 goals, they bottled those finals if anything!

If Lewandoski scores a goal in the final, he'll have had the best scorign CL campaign ever in terms of goals per minute with a minimum of 10 matches. How many would describe it as the greatest CL campaign? Or Immobile's season as the greatest Serie A campaign ever because of the goal record? Or Klose as the greatest World Cup player ever? No correlation, individual scoring is just one way players can impact the game, but it doesn't even come close to capturing the totality of their impact.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Impact on winning games is all that matters to me, no matter if that impact comes in the form of goals, assists or other contributions. We just have a different definition of impact I guess, I don't use the final result to attribute impact to players of the winning team or just goal/assist count to determine impact. Messi has more impact than Cristiano on a football pitch, league, CL, whatever tournament, he just has far more to his game. The only area where there's room for comparison is as scorers, every other area of the game Messi is just on a completely different level, this is not some sort of close comparison.

I don't think there's any necessary correlation between scoring more goals/more assists and being the better player. Even if you think there is, why would you not adjust those numbers to matches played anyway? Messi actually has more goals and assists per game (by a very small margin) than Ronaldo in the CL, Ronaldo is ahead in terms of total numbers because he played more matches. Then again, there's so much more to a player than just these raw numbers. Might as well stop discussing players if we're just going to rank them by number of goals/assists/trophies, we can find all that information easily, no need to discuss anything.

I'm yet to see a real argument for Ronaldo (or any other player) over Messi in the CL. So far it's all based on narrative; more total number of goals and assists (at a worse rate)? If we extend this logic, Immobile is the best player in European leagues this season and Klose is twice as good in the World Cup as Maradona. More team trophies? Well then, where's Gento in your GOAT rankings with his record 6 trophies? How high is Dani Alves (the player with most trophies in history) or Ryan Giggs in your overall GOAT rankings? The more we extend the logic being used to argue Messi isn't the CL GOAT, the more it becomes evident these rudimentary metrics don't account for the totality of a player's impact at all. Yes, Messi having more skill (scoring, playmaking, dribbling, ball control, etc...) than his peers is more important than trophy/stat count devoid of all context.

Well I still don't quite understand your matrix on defining on "impact on winning games", sure you could argue he has more impact on the general play of the game, as he is playmaker and getting involve more on build up play, with his dribbling and passing etc but that doesn't equal to "impact on winning".
Ronaldo, on the other hand, and won 5 CL, all 5 of it he finishes as tournament top goalscoerer and also the best player of the tournament (he won Ballon D'or on all of his CL winning years), so surely he has the biggest impact out of all players on winning those 5 CL, this is to me biggest sign of "impact on winning".

Also, did you watch Ronaldo in 16-17 CL run? He almost carried Real Madrid from knockout stage to winning the final all by himself, this is IMO the closest thing to Maradona individual brilliance in 86 WC. So your Klose comparison is rather strange. Has Klose ever come close in winning any best player award anyway?

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Well if that was true, there wouldn't be a universal debate that has raged on for over a decade. Or did the Messi vs. Ronaldo comparisons stem from redcafe? Everywhere else I've looked, Ronaldo has generally been deemed the superior CL player without it being close.

The debate exists because of how phenomenal the two players have been. But usually its in favour of Messi. Like i said even Ronaldo biased Redcafe picks Messi which says it all.

And if one focuses on pure goals and assists and trophies then sure. But that's like admitting that Messi is 4 times the player Ronaldo is, in general, merely because his team wiped the floor with Ronaldo's domestically. Which is silly of course. As has been said before, it's not the only metric. Ronaldo has more end product in finals but Messi has clearly performed far better than them.

Anyway this is all just semantics. Ronaldo has been an incredible football and continues to perform at a very high level. But he's just not as good as Messi who is just the best I've ever seen. His statistics are ridiculous but it's watching him play football that makes it utterly obvious.

 

[He'sRaldo]

Like i said even Ronaldo biased Redcafe picks Messi which says it all.

Repeating this doesn't make it true.

We will never forget.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Repeating this doesn't make it true.

We will never forget.

Yes, but being true makes it true.

We Only refer to Manchester United as we. Who are you referring to?!

 

[He'sRaldo]

Yes, but being true makes it true.

We Only refer to Manchester United as we. Who are you referring to?!

The true OG's who tried to speak out against the injustice and were silenced.

I too tried to speak out but as a mere newb, my defiant posts were not allowed

 

[amolbhatia50k]

The true OG's who tried to speak out against injustice and were silenced.

I too tried to speak out but as a mere newb, my defiant posts were not allowed

Good, we have mods here to curb the nuttiness.

 

[He'sRaldo]

Good, we have mods here to curb the nuttiness.

That's one way to phrase 'influence polls'.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

That's one way to phrase 'influence polls'.

Or just to call out obsessed fanatics. This is how flat earth started.

 

[He'sRaldo]

Or just to call out obsessed fanatics. This is how flat earth started.

Like I said, repeating something doesn't make it true.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Like I said, repeating something doesn't make it true.

You just repeated yourself.

Besides, your conspiracy theories and previous posts proves your fanaticism on the topic. It's fine, just embrace it, and move on. Or PM me if you have to.

 

[RedRonaldo]

The debate exists because of how phenomenal the two players have been. But usually its in favour of Messi. Like i said even Ronaldo biased Redcafe picks Messi which says it all.

And if one focuses on pure goals and assists and trophies then sure. But that's like admitting that Messi is 4 times the player Ronaldo is, in general, merely because his team wiped the floor with Ronaldo's domestically. Which is silly of course. As has been said before, it's not the only metric. Ronaldo has more end product in finals but Messi has clearly performed far better than them.

Anyway this is all just semantics. Ronaldo has been an incredible football and continues to perform at a very high level. But he's just not as good as Messi who is just the best I've ever seen. His statistics are ridiculous but it's watching him play football that makes it utterly obvious.

Messi has 4 times more goals/assist than Ronaldo domestically too? I didn't know that.

 

[Manuel Traquete]

Well I still don't quite understand your matrix on defining on "impact on winning games", sure you could argue he has more impact on the general play of the game, as he is playmaker and getting involve more on build up play, with his dribbling and passing etc but that doesn't equal to "impact on winning".
Ronaldo, on the other hand, and won 5 CL, all 5 of it he finishes as tournament top goalscoerer and also the best player of the tournament (he won Ballon D'or on all of his CL winning years), so surely he has the biggest impact out of all players on winning those 5 CL, this is to me biggest sign of "impact on winning".

Also, did you watch Ronaldo in 16-17 CL run? He almost carried Real Madrid from knockout stage to winning the final all by himself, this is IMO the closest thing to Maradona individual brilliance in 86 WC. So your Klose comparison is rather strange. Has Klose ever come close in winning any best player award anyway?

All by himself is a completely inaccurate description of what happened. Ronaldo scored 10 of the 20 RM goals in the 2017 knockout stages, so he was indeed their main goalscorer. But most of those goals were set up for him by his teammates and he himself didn't contribute all that much in the build up phase (let alone in defense). Was he the best player on the team and biggest reason why they won? Yes. Is calling it a carry job "all by himself" a complete misrepresentation of what happened? Yes.

Your reasoning is circular; he has the highest impact of winning and that's proven by the fact he won. There's a myriad of problems with this: let's start with the obvious fact that neither he, nor any other player, wins alone: Manchester United and Real Madrid won those Champions League with meaningful contributions from 15+ players. Becoming champions in the end doesn't prove that one of the team's players is the best or most impactful, only that the team itself was the best in the tournament. Case in point: Ronaldo performed at about the same level he did at RM the last two years at Juventus but got sent packing both years by second tier European teams. Did he suddenly lose his "impact on winning"? Of course not, he lost because, despite contribuiting, his team was inferior. It was not because individual players on Ajax and Lyon displayed a superior impact on winning.

I define impact on winning games by how much you can raise a team's overall play/chances to win. Messi is just far ahead of everyone in that regard, he's a GOAT-level scorer, playmaker andr dribbler, he can do everything for a team on the offensive end. Does this mean you're guaranteed to win if you have Messi? Of course not, in football a lot of factors decide the final result, even the best player of all-time has relatively little impact on his own. Talks about "winning all by yourself" are just not remotely grounded in reality but they're the kind of wild narrative needed to make a case for Ronaldo here I guess.

Also, it's not true that Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or every time he won the CL, Modric won in 2018. Not that I consider this even remotely relevant anyway, the Ballon d'Or is at best the reflection of the opinion of a very small number of voters who aren't necessarily more credible than any other randomly selected group of people. I say at best because in reality it's a narrative-based award; there's not a single thing Modric does better than Messi on a football pitch, not one, and not even Modric's parents would pick him over Messi for their team if push came to shove, and yet he "led Croatia to the WC final and RM to the CL title" so... uh ok.

Finally, if you're consistent with your logic you'll have to concede Messi has a much better international career than Ronaldo; Messi won the best player award at both the World Cup and the Copa America, while Cristiano was never even a strong candidate for the MVP award in any international tournament. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong, but something tells me this is not a concession you'd be willing to make and suddenly winning best player awards would cease being meaningful in this debate. If you're consistent with your standard, however, fair play even if I strongly disagree with it.

 

[RedRonaldo]

All by himself is a completely inaccurate description of what happened. Ronaldo scored 10 of the 20 RM goals in the 2017 knockout stages, so he was indeed their main goalscorer. But most of those goals were set up for him by his teammates and he himself didn't contribute all that much in the build up phase (let alone in defense). Was he the best player on the team and biggest reason why they won? Yes. Is calling it a carry job "all by himself" a complete misrepresentation of what happened? Yes.

Your reasoning is circular; he has the highest impact of winning and that's proven by the fact he won. There's a myriad of problems with this: let's start with the obvious fact that neither he, nor any other player, wins alone: Manchester United and Real Madrid won those Champions League with meaningful contributions from 15+ players. Becoming champions in the end doesn't prove that one of the team's players is the best or most impactful, only that the team itself was the best in the tournament. Case in point: Ronaldo performed at about the same level he did at RM the last two years at Juventus but got sent packing both years by second tier European teams. Did he suddenly lose his "impact on winning"? Of course not, he lost because, despite contribuiting, his team was inferior. It was not because individual players on Ajax and Lyon displayed a superior impact on winning.

I define impact on winning games by how much you can raise a team's overall play/chances to win. Messi is just far ahead of everyone in that regard, he's a GOAT-level scorer, playmaker andr dribbler, he can do everything for a team on the offensive end. Does this mean you're guaranteed to win if you have Messi? Of course not, in football a lot of factors decide the final result, even the best player of all-time has relatively little impact on his own. Talks about "winning all by yourself" are just not remotely grounded in reality but they're the kind of wild narrative needed to make a case for Ronaldo here I guess.

Also, it's not true that Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or every time he won the CL, Modric won in 2018. Not that I consider this even remotely relevant anyway, the Ballon d'Or is at best the reflection of the opinion of a very small number of voters who aren't necessarily more credible than any other randomly selected group of people. I say at best because in reality it's a narrative-based award; there's not a single thing Modric does better than Messi on a football pitch, not one, and not even Modric's parents would pick him over Messi for their team if push came to shove, and yet he "led Croatia to the WC final and RM to the CL title" so... uh ok.

Finally, if you're consistent with your logic you'll have to concede Messi has a much better international career than Ronaldo; Messi won the best player award at both the World Cup and the Copa America, while Cristiano was never even a strong candidate for the MVP award in any international tournament. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong, but something tells me this is not a concession you'd be willing to make and suddenly winning best player awards would cease being meaningful in this debate. If you're consistent with your standard, however, fair play even if I strongly disagree with it.

Well as you are writing too long and its getting more and more confusing, let's just break it down on the following:

All by himself is a completely inaccurate description of what happened. Ronaldo scored 10 of the 20 RM goals in the 2017 knockout stages, so he was indeed their main goalscorer. But most of those goals were set up for him by his teammates and he himself didn't contribute all that much in the build up phase (let alone in defense). Was he the best player on the team and biggest reason why they won? Yes. Is calling it a carry job "all by himself" a complete misrepresentation of what happened? Yes.

He carried Real Madrid, "almost" all by himself is merely description on how important he was for Real Madrid during 16-17 CL run, sure no one can carried the team all by himself, not even Maradona, but you get the point, he is most impactful player during that run, and probably in any other football competition bar Maradona in 86 WC, no need to dwell too much on the exact wording used.

Ronaldo performed at about the same level he did at RM the last two years at Juventus but got sent packing both years by second tier European teams. Did he suddenly lose his "impact on winning"? Of course not, he lost because, despite contribuiting, his team was inferior. It was not because individual players on Ajax and Lyon displayed a superior impact on winning.

Sure Juventus was weaker than Real Madrid, and Ronaldo still need a good team to support him for winning CL, but he was also 34 and 35 in last 2 years he played for Juventus, lets not forget that. Expecting him to win CL "on his own" for Juventus at this age is quite unrealistic, to be fair. He did have some great matches though, scoring hattrick against Althetico last season was magical, even Messi and Pep, his long term rivals, both very impressed openly praised his hattrick feat. And this year even they went out losing against Lyon, he also scored all of Juventus goals in knockout stages, he is true fighter in that sense.

Also, it's not true that Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or every time he won the CL, Modric won in 2018. Not that I consider this even remotely relevant anyway, the Ballon d'Or is at best the reflection of the opinion of a very small number of voters who aren't necessarily more credible than any other randomly selected group of people. I say at best because in reality it's a narrative-based award; there's not a single thing Modric does better than Messi on a football pitch, not one, and not even Modric's parents would pick him over Messi for their team if push came to shove, and yet he "led Croatia to the WC final and RM to the CL title" so... uh ok.

Sure, but prior to WC, Ronaldo is the favourite to win Ballon D'or out of his CL performances, I am pretty sure on that. The WC changes everything, Modric got it in the end, mostly for his WC performances, although I don't think he is good enough to be among top 5-10 prior to WC. But WC is WC.

I define impact on winning games by how much you can raise a team's overall play/chances to win. Messi is just far ahead of everyone in that regard, he's a GOAT-level scorer, playmaker andr dribbler, he can do everything for a team on the offensive end. Does this mean you're guaranteed to win if you have Messi? Of course not, in football a lot of factors decide the final result, even the best player of all-time has relatively little impact on his own. Talks about "winning all by yourself" are just not remotely grounded in reality but they're the kind of wild narrative needed to make a case for Ronaldo here I guess.

Now this is the part I agree, and disagree with. The part I agree - impact on winning games by how can raise a team's overall play/chances to win, I think no other player is better than Ronaldo in CL in this respect. The part I don't agree with - for you its more about dribbling and playmaking, but for me, its about how his overall presence on the pitch are more likely to win games for his team. Goals is of course a big part, but the goals he scored are not just icing on the cake type of goals, for example, bicycling kick vs Juventus etc Those goals are truly individual brilliance or important goals. He never give up fighting on the pitch, even in most adverse situation he scores. And his teammates could only rely on him scoring goals to win the match on many occasions. His 16-17 run is example of that. Its not just about goals, but also about his determination, keep making runs and finding space to shoot, driving his teammates forward to attack, encourage his teammates during adverse situation, making correct decision on the pitch, and performing his best and always delivered in the most crucial moment etc These are often the biggest difference between winning or losing, and this is how he impact his team and raising his team overall chances to win too, and no one does it better than him in this respect, especially in CL history.

Finally, if you're consistent with your logic you'll have to concede Messi has a much better international career than Ronaldo; Messi won the best player award at both the World Cup and the Copa America, while Cristiano was never even a strong candidate for the MVP award in any international tournament. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong, but something tells me this is not a concession you'd be willing to make and suddenly winning best player awards would cease being meaningful in this debate. If you're consistent with your standard, however, fair play even if I strongly disagree with it.

Again you are just missing my whole point - Messi never won any international trophies, how does it have anything to do with "impact on winning"? Sure you have to "win" it first, in order to claim having impact of "winning"? Hypothetically speaking, if he loss every matches but have big impact in all the games he played, you can't really say he has big impact on "winning", can you? He surely has big "impact" on many matches he played, or maybe lets say winning some games in group stages against minor teams during WC? But he didn't score goals or contribute much in winning games in the knockout stages (Argentina progress during knockout stages mainly due to their defence, not Messi though), and he surely didn't win the WC, did he? At best you can say he is best player in group stages, or something. But surely not best player in WC from his impact on winning, and definitely not from the knockout stages onwards.

 

[Zehner]

Thing is, goal scorer is the one with the last touch before the ball passes the line. But in the creation of that goal, the one with the last touch isn't necessarily the one that contributed the most to it. In most cases, I feel that the one finishing the attack isn't really the one that deserves the most credit for it since many, many finishes aren't that impressive. It's an opening pass or a dribbling creating superiority in the build up that lead to it.

When you watch all Madrid goals in those CL runs then you see many good goals by Cristiano but it's not like he was the one that always stood out in the creation of it. But with Messi it's different. You rarely see that he's not the most instrumental player in the attack of Barcelona. When he scores, a much bigger proportion in the creation of the goal is seen through by him. And when somebody else scores, Messi's coontribution to that on average is far higher than CR7's. And that's what people speak of when they compare Messi's and Cristiano's overall contribution.

Cristiano looks "better" on one very specific spread sheet (goals in CL knockout stages) because the metric is unfit to measure the performance of a player accurately.

 

[Joga Bonito]

All by himself is a completely inaccurate description of what happened. Ronaldo scored 10 of the 20 RM goals in the 2017 knockout stages, so he was indeed their main goalscorer. But most of those goals were set up for him by his teammates and he himself didn't contribute all that much in the build up phase (let alone in defense). Was he the best player on the team and biggest reason why they won? Yes. Is calling it a carry job "all by himself" a complete misrepresentation of what happened? Yes.

Your reasoning is circular; he has the highest impact of winning and that's proven by the fact he won. There's a myriad of problems with this: let's start with the obvious fact that neither he, nor any other player, wins alone: Manchester United and Real Madrid won those Champions League with meaningful contributions from 15+ players. Becoming champions in the end doesn't prove that one of the team's players is the best or most impactful, only that the team itself was the best in the tournament. Case in point: Ronaldo performed at about the same level he did at RM the last two years at Juventus but got sent packing both years by second tier European teams. Did he suddenly lose his "impact on winning"? Of course not, he lost because, despite contribuiting, his team was inferior. It was not because individual players on Ajax and Lyon displayed a superior impact on winning.

I define impact on winning games by how much you can raise a team's overall play/chances to win. Messi is just far ahead of everyone in that regard, he's a GOAT-level scorer, playmaker andr dribbler, he can do everything for a team on the offensive end. Does this mean you're guaranteed to win if you have Messi? Of course not, in football a lot of factors decide the final result, even the best player of all-time has relatively little impact on his own. Talks about "winning all by yourself" are just not remotely grounded in reality but they're the kind of wild narrative needed to make a case for Ronaldo here I guess.

Also, it's not true that Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or every time he won the CL, Modric won in 2018. Not that I consider this even remotely relevant anyway, the Ballon d'Or is at best the reflection of the opinion of a very small number of voters who aren't necessarily more credible than any other randomly selected group of people. I say at best because in reality it's a narrative-based award; there's not a single thing Modric does better than Messi on a football pitch, not one, and not even Modric's parents would pick him over Messi for their team if push came to shove, and yet he "led Croatia to the WC final and RM to the CL title" so... uh ok.

Finally, if you're consistent with your logic you'll have to concede Messi has a much better international career than Ronaldo; Messi won the best player award at both the World Cup and the Copa America, while Cristiano was never even a strong candidate for the MVP award in any international tournament. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong, but something tells me this is not a concession you'd be willing to make and suddenly winning best player awards would cease being meaningful in this debate. If you're consistent with your standard, however, fair play even if I strongly disagree with it.

Great post.

 

[Shark]

Is this Messi vs Ronaldo thread?

I honestly don't understand why these Ronaldo vs Messi debates are still going on so strongly. Can we not just appreciate that we've been lucky enough to see both of these guys at their peaks and we may even see them together in the end if Messi does want to leave Barca. Unlikely but you never know in football.

 

[mancan92]

You know why? Because nobody actually divides a career into "CL performances" and "domestic performances". The only reason that is discussed is because CR7 fans have identified the CL as the one specific area in which CR7s stats actually beat Messi's (CL knockout stage goals). Hence this topic is discussed in here so frequently.

I mean, for a second just visualize what we're currently discussing. Look at how much you have to filter their careers in order to make Cristiano look better.

a) Just look at goals
b) Just look at CL
c) Just look at the KO stage of the CL


Show people a summary of every touch of every game both played in the CL in a row, ask them which summary is more impressive and 90% will say Messi, I guarantee you that. Football is more than goals records.

Yeah you filter who was the most decisive player, the one with the highest assists and the most important metric in football goals. Seems like the right criteria to pick the best player ever in a competition.

 

[Fortitude]

Is this Messi vs Ronaldo thread?

It's like posters won't stop until they are literally thread banned.

 

[Zehner]

Yeah you filter who was the most decisive player, the one with the highest assists and the most important metric in football goals. Seems like the right criteria to pick the best player ever in a competition.

Yes, if you've never watched football in your life.

Reminds me of my childhood me that just began watching football. 'Daddy Klose has scored so many goals at the WC, he' s the best player in Germany, right?'

 

[mancan92]

Yes, if you've never watched football in your life.

Reminds me of my childhood me that just began watching football. 'Daddy Klose has scored so many goals at the WC, he' s the best player in Germany, right?'

Not really Ronaldo has dominated the champions league for 12 years that's not the same as klose performing once in every 4 years. Then you also forgot he also has the highest assists which also suggests he's hugely involved in creating opportunities for others not just sitting and goal poaching.

 

[mancan92]

Klose is leagues ahead of Luiz Ronaldo man. Lightning years ahead of Pelé!

Hmm I wonder how many CL trophies and European Cup goals Maradonna has?

Honestly this is embarrassing are yiu really comparing Luiz Ronaldo vs klose to Messi and c. Ronaldo?

Some of you guys are genuinely embarrassing your acting like Ronaldo is anywhere close to these guys and not himself one of the best players ever without the champions league performances.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Messi is easily in the top 1.

 

[GatoLoco]

Debatable is a very strong word. I'd say it's undebatably false that there's a direct correlation between scoring more goals and being more decisive. "Decisive" seems to be used here as a buzzword, a proxy for "scored more goals". Indeed, Ronaldinho was far more decisive than Eto'o, Zidane than Henry and Beckenbauer than Muller. And Messi is more "decisive" than Cristiano indeed, whatever that means really, he's just the far superior all-around player with greater influence on games.

The last two United CL finals they were destroyed because Xavi and Iniesta basically ran circles around them in midfield. But by this logic, they weren't as decisive as Eto'o and Pedro, heck 0 goals, they bottled those finals if anything!

If Lewandoski scores a goal in the final, he'll have had the best scorign CL campaign ever in terms of goals per minute with a minimum of 10 matches. How many would describe it as the greatest CL campaign? Or Immobile's season as the greatest Serie A campaign ever because of the goal record? Or Klose as the greatest World Cup player ever? No correlation, individual scoring is just one way players can impact the game, but it doesn't even come close to capturing the totality of their impact.

1) It's not more goals, it's more than twice the goals in the most difficult rounds in CL. There is more than just a subtle difference there and, without being a definite proof of anything as you rightly said, it probably adds more useful information than resorting to false analogies.

2) The context of the discussion was performance in CL, not the overall career. I want to make that clear.

3) If a Cyborg whose main ability was to guarantee 3 goals per game in spite of never contributing to the build up happened to storm the Champions League everyone would refer to him as the footballer with the biggest influence on that competition. Point being, when a footballer is complete that is desirable, but volume in one department can make the difference.

4) I'm still waiting for someone to tell me their opinion on Messi's contribution in the knockouts where Barcelona was eliminated.

A helping hand to remember which games I'm referring to can be seen below:

 

[jderbyshire]

This lad could do a job on the RW for us if we don't get Sancho.

 

[VanKenny]

4) I'm still waiting for someone to tell me their opinion on Messi's contribution in the knockouts where Barcelona was eliminated.

A helping hand to remember which games I'm referring to can be seen below:

The fact that Messi is judged and questioned about the games he DIDNT win just say it all about this debate really. No other player in history gets his career picked apart and questioned about why he didnt win particular matches.


The fact that people expect him to make the difference every single game regardless of what his team does is enough to realize he is by far the best. No other player gets judged that harshly. Thats the bar he set for himself i guess.

 

[GatoLoco]

The fact that Messi is judged and questioned about the games he DIDNT win just say it all about this debate really. No other player in history gets his career picked apart and questioned about why he didnt win particular matches.


The fact that people expect him to make the difference every single game regardless of what his team does is enough to realize he is by far the best. No other player gets judged that harshly. Thats the bar he set for himself i guess.

Every player in the world gets judged on their contribution in particular matches, and I just pointed out at 20 of them. Everything else is product of your imagination

 

[MrEleson]

Klose is leagues ahead of Luiz Ronaldo man. Lightning years ahead of Pelé!

Hmm I wonder how many CL trophies and European Cup goals Maradonna has?

Silly post. The disparity between Ronaldo & Messi isn't as large as that between L.Ronaldo & Klose. C.Ronaldo is one of the very best players of all-time in his own right. Klose isn't.

 

[carvajal]

I am reading on twitter the reactions of the fans to his possible departure and there is a lot of :
"he deserves to do what he wants" ,"if he leaves thanks for everything" "Bartomeu,this is your fault" but few really worried.
Some even mention Rexach who said that Madrid were right selling Cristiano or have started with the milkmaid's tale, thinking who they will pay with his salary

 

[Daysleeper]

Well if that was true, there wouldn't be a universal debate that has raged on for over a decade. Or did the Messi vs. Ronaldo comparisons stem from redcafe? Everywhere else I've looked, Ronaldo has generally been deemed the superior CL player without it being close.

Yes but for all time player period it’s almost always been Messi

 

[Daysleeper]

I am reading on twitter the reactions of the fans to his possible departure and there is a lot of :
"he deserves to do what he wants" ,"if he leaves thanks for everything" "Bartomeu,this is your fault" but few really worried.
Some even mention Rexach who said that Madrid were right selling Cristiano or have started with the milkmaid's tale, thinking who they will pay with his salary

It’s not ideal, and I hope it doesn’t happen but we need a very hard reset and I don’t blame Messi if he chooses to move on from the rebuild. It would open up a lot in regards to the wage bill, but with the way this club has done business I could see them squandering. At this point we just need Barto out as soon as possible. I think Messi is just very very frustrated right now. And since he doesn’t track back having Suarez as well is just suicide against any team worth their salt.

I think he stays, but I wouldn’t be angry if he left. I’d wish him the best. I’m more concerned with how Barca can rebuild as a whole.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

All by himself is a completely inaccurate description of what happened. Ronaldo scored 10 of the 20 RM goals in the 2017 knockout stages, so he was indeed their main goalscorer. But most of those goals were set up for him by his teammates and he himself didn't contribute all that much in the build up phase (let alone in defense). Was he the best player on the team and biggest reason why they won? Yes. Is calling it a carry job "all by himself" a complete misrepresentation of what happened? Yes.

Your reasoning is circular; he has the highest impact of winning and that's proven by the fact he won. There's a myriad of problems with this: let's start with the obvious fact that neither he, nor any other player, wins alone: Manchester United and Real Madrid won those Champions League with meaningful contributions from 15+ players. Becoming champions in the end doesn't prove that one of the team's players is the best or most impactful, only that the team itself was the best in the tournament. Case in point: Ronaldo performed at about the same level he did at RM the last two years at Juventus but got sent packing both years by second tier European teams. Did he suddenly lose his "impact on winning"? Of course not, he lost because, despite contribuiting, his team was inferior. It was not because individual players on Ajax and Lyon displayed a superior impact on winning.

I define impact on winning games by how much you can raise a team's overall play/chances to win. Messi is just far ahead of everyone in that regard, he's a GOAT-level scorer, playmaker andr dribbler, he can do everything for a team on the offensive end. Does this mean you're guaranteed to win if you have Messi? Of course not, in football a lot of factors decide the final result, even the best player of all-time has relatively little impact on his own. Talks about "winning all by yourself" are just not remotely grounded in reality but they're the kind of wild narrative needed to make a case for Ronaldo here I guess.

Also, it's not true that Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or every time he won the CL, Modric won in 2018. Not that I consider this even remotely relevant anyway, the Ballon d'Or is at best the reflection of the opinion of a very small number of voters who aren't necessarily more credible than any other randomly selected group of people. I say at best because in reality it's a narrative-based award; there's not a single thing Modric does better than Messi on a football pitch, not one, and not even Modric's parents would pick him over Messi for their team if push came to shove, and yet he "led Croatia to the WC final and RM to the CL title" so... uh ok.

Finally, if you're consistent with your logic you'll have to concede Messi has a much better international career than Ronaldo; Messi won the best player award at both the World Cup and the Copa America, while Cristiano was never even a strong candidate for the MVP award in any international tournament. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong, but something tells me this is not a concession you'd be willing to make and suddenly winning best player awards would cease being meaningful in this debate. If you're consistent with your standard, however, fair play even if I strongly disagree with it.

Great post. Will go over many heads though.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Thing is, goal scorer is the one with the last touch before the ball passes the line. But in the creation of that goal, the one with the last touch isn't necessarily the one that contributed the most to it. In most cases, I feel that the one finishing the attack isn't really the one that deserves the most credit for it since many, many finishes aren't that impressive. It's an opening pass or a dribbling creating superiority in the build up that lead to it.

When you watch all Madrid goals in those CL runs then you see many good goals by Cristiano but it's not like he was the one that always stood out in the creation of it. But with Messi it's different. You rarely see that he's not the most instrumental player in the attack of Barcelona. When he scores, a much bigger proportion in the creation of the goal is seen through by him. And when somebody else scores, Messi's coontribution to that on average is far higher than CR7's. And that's what people speak of when they compare Messi's and Cristiano's overall contribution.

Cristiano looks "better" on one very specific spread sheet (goals in CL knockout stages) because the metric is unfit to measure the performance of a player accurately.

Ronaldo has create more goals than Messi in CL though, as he has more assists too.
Anyway if the discussion is more about playmaker vs goalscorer, and playmaker always win in your mind, there nothing much to discuss about. For me, both Ronaldo and Messi has perfect their specific role in the team, no one does it better than them in their specific role. So in the end, it’s more about how big impact they had on their team in winning games/trophies.

Ronaldo is the obvious winner - biggest impact in winning 5 CL, all time top scorer, all time top assist.
Whereas as for Messi - biggest impact in winning 3 CL, 2nd in all time top scorer, 2nd in assist .

 

[Manuel Traquete]

Well as you are writing too long and its getting more and more confusing, let's just break it down on the following:


He carried Real Madrid, "almost" all by himself is merely description on how important he was for Real Madrid during 16-17 CL run, sure no one can carried the team all by himself, not even Maradona, but you get the point, he is most impactful player during that run, and probably in any other football competition bar Maradona in 86 WC, no need to dwell too much on the exact wording used.


Sure Juventus was weaker than Real Madrid, and Ronaldo still need a good team to support him for winning CL, but he was also 34 and 35 in last 2 years he played for Juventus, lets not forget that. Expecting him to win CL "on his own" for Juventus at this age is quite unrealistic, to be fair. He did have some great matches though, scoring hattrick against Althetico last season was magical, even Messi and Pep, his long term rivals, both very impressed openly praised his hattrick feat. And this year even they went out losing against Lyon, he also scored all of Juventus goals in knockout stages, he is true fighter in that sense.


Sure, but prior to WC, Ronaldo is the favourite to win Ballon D'or out of his CL performances, I am pretty sure on that. The WC changes everything, Modric got it in the end, mostly for his WC performances, although I don't think he is good enough to be among top 5-10 prior to WC. But WC is WC.


Now this is the part I agree, and disagree with. The part I agree - impact on winning games by how can raise a team's overall play/chances to win, I think no other player is better than Ronaldo in CL in this respect. The part I don't agree with - for you its more about dribbling and playmaking, but for me, its about how his overall presence on the pitch are more likely to win games for his team. Goals is of course a big part, but the goals he scored are not just icing on the cake type of goals, for example, bicycling kick vs Juventus etc Those goals are truly individual brilliance or important goals. He never give up fighting on the pitch, even in most adverse situation he scores. And his teammates could only rely on him scoring goals to win the match on many occasions. His 16-17 run is example of that. Its not just about goals, but also about his determination, keep making runs and finding space to shoot, driving his teammates forward to attack, encourage his teammates during adverse situation, making correct decision on the pitch, and performing his best and always delivered in the most crucial moment etc These are often the biggest difference between winning or losing, and this is how he impact his team and raising his team overall chances to win too, and no one does it better than him in this respect, especially in CL history.



Again you are just missing my whole point - Messi never won any international trophies, how does it have anything to do with "impact on winning"? Sure you have to "win" it first, in order to claim having impact of "winning"? Hypothetically speaking, if he loss every matches but have big impact in all the games he played, you can't really say he has big impact on "winning", can you? He surely has big "impact" on many matches he played, or maybe lets say winning some games in group stages against minor teams during WC? But he didn't score goals or contribute much in winning games in the knockout stages (Argentina progress during knockout stages mainly due to their defence, not Messi though), and he surely didn't win the WC, did he? At best you can say he is best player in group stages, or something. But surely not best player in WC from his impact on winning, and definitely not from the knockout stages onwards.

No he did not carry RM "almost all by himself", why persist with that? He scored half of their goals in the knockout stages and wasn't the main player in any of the other phases of the game. That RM team had plenty of other excellent players who contributed greatly to their victory. We do need to dwell on the wording used because it paints a picture that doesn't reflect reality at all.

Your reasoning is all over the place, it's not even internally consistent. Ronaldo needs a good team to win the CL? But aren't you saying he wins "all by himself" and crediting team wins as if they were his own? Then you say the reason we can't expect him to win at Juventus "by himself" is his age. So you're saying the reason his results haven't been as good with Juventus is his age and if he was younger he'd win all by himself? I can't figure out what point you're trying to make here. So he's had magical performances and is a true fighter even though he lost, but just a few lines after you claim Messi can't have had any impact on winning internationally since he didn't actually win anything. So do losing performances count or not?

Can you settle on one narrative here? So did Juventus lose because (a) Ronaldo no longer has an impact on winning in the CL and (b) individual players on Lyon and Ajax just have superior impact or (c) crazy idea here, but maybe football is not a 1 vs 1 sport and there's a myriad of factors deciding who wins matches and tournaments and therefore team victories can't be attributed to one players. Nah, too crazy, right?

You can absolute have the biggest impact on the game while not winning. There's 21 other players on the pitch, all of them making an impact as well. Football matches are not a referendum on which team has the best player.

The part I bolded, I strongly disagree with but I respect it; if you believe Ronaldo raises his team's chances of winning more than Messi because of those factors, fair enough. I do believe Messi's superior and far more diverse skills on the ball make him the more valuable player, but then again there's no way to prove this is a fact.

1) It's not more goals, it's more than twice the goals in the most difficult rounds in CL. There is more than just a subtle difference there and, without being a definite proof of anything as you rightly said, it probably adds more useful information than resorting to false analogies.

2) The context of the discussion was performance in CL, not the overall career. I want to make that clear.

3) If a Cyborg whose main ability was to guarantee 3 goals per game in spite of never contributing to the build up happened to storm the Champions League everyone would refer to him as the footballer with the biggest influence on that competition. Point being, when a footballer is complete that is desirable, but volume in one department can make the difference.

4) I'm still waiting for someone to tell me their opinion on Messi's contribution in the knockouts where Barcelona was eliminated.

A helping hand to remember which games I'm referring to can be seen below:

1) Why are the analogies false? If we decide raw scoring stats are the best barometer to decide who the best player is, why would we not apply that same standard to other comparisons? Why are raw scoring numbers the deciding factor in this one specific comparison but not in others?

3) Unless that guy was capable of literally capable of stealing the ball from the opposition and score without any help from teammates, that scenario would never exist no matter how good a player is. Weren't you just complaining about false analogies? This is an actual example of one. If you're guaranteed to score 3 goals in a match no matter what, then who cares about build up? Ronaldo's goals, however, aren't guaranteed, he finishes those plays, but others have to create them.

4) This is Messi/Ronaldo stan on Twitter level of ridiculous, sorry to say. You can do much better than this. Are you seriously listing ties where Messi didn't score (with no further information given about his performance) and asking people to explain. Well then, explain to me these ties:

2007 R16 - Manchester United 2-0 Lille (0 goals)
2008 SF - Manchester United 1-0 Barcelona (0 goals, 1 penalty missed)
2009 F - Barcelona 2-0 Manchester United (0 goals)
2011 R16 - Real Madrid 4-1 Lyon (0 goals)
2011 SF - Barcelona 3-1 Real Madrid (0 goals)
2015 QF - Real Madrid 1-0 Atletico Madrid (0 goals)
2016 SF - Real Madrid 1-0 Manchester City (0 goals)
2016 F - Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid (0 goals)
2017 R16 - Real Madrid 6-2 Napoli (0 goals)
2018 SF - Real Madrid 4-3 Bayern (0 goals)
2018 F - Real Madrid 3-1 Liverpool (0 goals)

Please explain to me his performances in all these ties where he either lost or had to be bailed out by his teammates while doing nothing! Or... better yet, seriously reconsider you method of analysis. Everyone is a bottler if we pick games/ties where they didn't score and ask why they didn't.