I need a video of ROnaldo's assists, to see if he has the same ability to assist like Messi
Oh, wait, I remember now that I posted a video here and he was ridiculous assisting, most of his assist weren't even assists like Ronaldo shots and another guy takes the deflection lol
Don't worry guys, I'll do the
"dreadful" task of watching the Real Madrid 121 goal season (relevant sample pool, I think) to see, at a glance, how his assists were skewed
So, 12 La Liga assists per Wikipedia, to my subjective standards which are Chance created, Low effort (normal pass that the teammate turns into an assist by a dribble, long shot, etc) and stat padded (grazing a ball en route to other player, etc)
8 from created chances (most of them, crosses)
2 from low effort (one to each Benzema and Higuain)
1 stat padded (shot deflected on him I think it was), I'm missing one and watched the vid twice, so either I'm not locating one assist, or is another graze, in a goal scored by Marcelo
Not a fraud by any means, he just shows that beyond his scoring prowess, he's still, at the core of his skill, the guy that once was the best winger in the world, no one can take that from him except age.
Also, fun fact, after watching that video it was already clear the Higuain needed to leave that team, kinda seems both him and Cris are fighting for some chances, and ignoring each other while having their teammate open (Higuain is the biggest offender, as he obviusly had a chip on his shoulder and wanted to show he could do it by himself instead of feeding goals to Cris that should've been fed to him, positioning-wise)
Then, you can compare that with Leo in the same season
25 created chances (most of them dribbling past 1/2 players, or attracting 3 defenders that create a gap on the side of the field Messi assists to)
3 from low effort
We're talking of what probably was their peak year for both of them (or as close as it gets) and if you bear to watch both videos (couldn't find one for Ronaldo assists only) comparing their assists is like comparing Antonio Valencia vs Michael Laudrup... no one denies that you could achieve great things with Beckham crossing and Jan Koller as the 9, but they won't lit up a stadium like Laudrup and Romario did on their day, ability to execute difficult things with ease is one of the trademarks of the greatest, imo.