Well think how many goals Pele would have scored had he taken all the penalties that were available to him…..
Messi v Ronaldo | Contains double your daily salt allowance
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Well think how many goals Pele would have scored had he taken all the penalties that were available to him…..
If he took as many as Ronaldo he'd probably be out of reach.
So as a member of UEFA if you're Andorra, Luxembourg, you don't have the right to play other UEFA members in a qualification? The games make all the sense. Isn't football about equality and all?
Muller's freedom ends where someone else's starts. The minnows have as much right to participate as the big whales.
Nothing against him actually, I respect his opinion as everyone else's too, regardless of making sense or not.
This whole discussion about Ronaldo's international goalscoring makes zero sense whatsoever (this isn't directed at you). Just remove 35 of his goals against the lowest ranked teams and he'll still be tied with Messi at 85 and ahead of everyone else currently playing.
On top of that, Luxembourg significantly improve in the last couple of years, they're not always an easy team to play against. Andorra is still pretty bad but there's actually not a lot of teams like that in Europe.
They can play, but make a pre-qualifier games for the lowest ranked teams.
CONCACAF, a very corrupt organization, has a pre-qualifier matches for the amateur caribbean islands, so we don't see the likes Saint Vincent islands,Curacao,Aruba,Grenada,etc in the final round.
Completely pointless to see Germany or Spain vs semi-proffesional teams San Marino,Andorra,Malta,Faroe Islands,etc
Those teams are not getting better for getting stomped by big teams or even tier 2 teams.
I hope they change the format for the next WC qualifier.
Completely pointless matches against some amateur teams is only excused by profits.
The CONCACAF pre-qualifiers model is the best, it suits UEFA perfectly cause they also have tons of members.
Wolf1992, I'm sure if you ask those teams, they'd disagree with you. Regardless, we agree to disagree, but I do somehwat agree maybe the format can be tweaked.
Above all, I love this thread, but out of all pointless arguments here, which are still entertaining to read, Ronaldo's lead is so huge one can trim off 35 goals of one's choosing and he'd still be on top. And it's not like him and Messi never wrecked world class national teams before.
Above all, I love this thread, but out of all pointless arguments here, which are still entertaining to read, Ronaldo's lead is so huge one can trim off 35 goals of one's choosing and he'd still be on top. And it's not like him and Messi never wrecked world class national teams before.
Not sure exactly what you mean here, are you referring Spain (WC 18), Germany (Euro 20) and France (Euro 20) are all dross? As he did “statpads” against them in recent years too, scoring 6 goals in 3 games there. Basically he just scored against any opponents he faced, more than anyone, as he hold the record of scoring against most nations.
But anyway, whoever you defined as dross, still an impressive record, as they all have similar chances against so called “dross” anyway, but Ronaldo does score far far more than any of them.
No it's pretty clear who I meant and it wasn't Spain, Germany etc.
It makes a lot of sense actually if you understand what is being said. Around 60 of his goals have come in qualifying for the two major tournaments (many of them against minnows) at an almost goal a game rate. In tournaments his record is much worse, 7 in 17 in the WC and 14 in 25 in the Euros (decent but not up to his usual standard). Then when you get to the business end of tournaments, his goals disappear almost entirely. He has 3 in the KO rounds of the Euros and 0 in the KO rounds of the WC.
So out of 115 international goals, he’s scored 3 in the actual biggest games in his career. That’s not good.
Now the default response to mild criticism like this from Ronaldo fans is ‘buh-buh-buh Messi….’
Here’s the thing. Messi doesn’t stand or fall by just his goals. That’s one of the reasons he’s a superior player to Ronaldo. But secondly and most importantly, Messi and Ronaldo are not the only good players to have played this game.
Take for example the original Ronaldo. He only has 62 international goals, but 13 of them were scored in the KO rounds of major tournaments. Then you have Pele, who scored 7 goals in the KO rounds of the WC alone. I’m not even going to lean on the 8 he scored in one Copa America because that was a league format.
That’s all I’m saying.
Except It doesn’t work that way. If it does, anyone with decent ratio who played over 1500 games would have over 1000 goals easily. And of course, if Hazard maintain his top form for 20 years, he might be better than Pele. You know, this logic just doesn’t make any sense at all.
But he did stat pad against Spain, France, Germany too, why avoid mentioning those?
Because I was actually talking about him still scoring for fun against lesser teams. It wasn't derogatory.
He scores v everybody. Every international striker is in the same boat with the way international football is set up.
I don't disagree at all.
Then I don’t get your point? If stat padding in international football were a thing then wouldn’t a lot more top strikers be near Ronaldo tally?
My point was that its admirable that Ronaldo has the motivation and ability to turn up against those teams even at his age. It wasn't to downplay his abilty.
Not disagreeing that Messi or Pele are all great great players, but I am afraid you are taking things abit out of context when comparing stats. Especially when Ronaldo hasn’t quite develop his game/role as goalscorer for his team during his first 4-5 years as midfield winger, and his teams usually wasn’t strong enough to progress further against the likes of Germany, Spain, France during their peaks.
And also take Pele for example, great player and GOAT in WC of course, but he did played in an era under strongest team of century, and during his active years, we have some elites goalscorer like Fountain scoring 13 goals in 6 games in WC 58, Eusebio scoring 9 in 6 in WC 66, and Muller scoring 10 in 6 in WC 70. Goals are just flowing in everywhere among the elites. IMO It’s really hard to compare stats of players from different era under different team. We dont have as many top teams setting up ultra defensively like England in Euro 20, with 7 defensive players, as compared to the 60s, where they usually may have 7 attacking players instead.
Those are actually WC and Euro qualifiers. They still have beat those teams to qualify, and sometimes they will need to have better goals difference to qualify.
Just take recent WC qualifiers as an example, Portugal is still 2nd place in their group as to date and has not yet obtain automatic qualification, if they draw their next 2 games in hand, they may have to rely on goal difference to qualify, so the goals he scored could actually become the deciding factor, in terms of qualifying or not.
And sure if Ronaldo didn’t scored the 2 injury time goals against Ireland some weeks ago, they may even not in good position to qualify at all.
You really think those are stat padding goals for fun only?
I had a mate back in the day who sat on a huge collection of Beta tapes (of all things) featuring loads of South American football (the newer stuff was probably recordings of TV broadcasts - but the older stuff couldn't have been that). Anyway, he had Santos material (both domestic and Libertadores) that I've never seen anywhere online.
No idea where it actually came from - the person in question was originally from Colombia.
I get your point re the comparing across eras but his record in KOs is still poor even if you compare it to a more modern player like Davor Suker (great player but obviously nowhere near CR). I mention him because he played for Croatia, therefore no advantage re playing for a legendary team or being from a large, historic power. Yet he has 4 goals in 4 KO matches.
And even if we leave out Ronaldo’s early years, he’s been a prolific goalscorer since at least 2007-08. Since then he’s played in 3 World Cups and 4 Euros. He has 2 goals in 10 KO matches.
Agreed
Absolutely, you had to be a real hunter in those days without the internet. Now it’s so much easier. Not to mention that we can watch on TV every single game that contemporary players participate in. We should be grateful really.
No he didn’t because he has much less goals against those kinds of teams. That’s the whole point. He has 5 goals in 29 games vs World Cup Winning Nations.
how could he? he was literally on zero goals against those nations until recently.
funny enough, when you type stat padding and search images, the first footballer to come out is Ronaldo 
vas majority of others have Westbrook I think (don't follow basketball).
vas majority of others have Westbrook I think (don't follow basketball).Some penalties as well. But at least he scores them.
Been mentioned before - but someone did, a few years ago, attempt to make a "big game impact" comparison of the most prolific goal scorers historically.
Pretty sure there was a thread dedicated to it on here too - but I can't find it (maybe there wasn't one).
Anyway - the idea was to rate goals according to their relative importance (scoring the winner in a WC final would be a 10...and down from there...something like that).
Pretty sure there was a thread dedicated to it on here too - but I can't find it (maybe there wasn't one).
Anyway - the idea was to rate goals according to their relative importance (scoring the winner in a WC final would be a 10...and down from there...something like that).
That would be very interesting to read.
Yep. More interesting than pure numbers - at least.
In theory it should be possible to establish a more or less objective standard: type of competition, strength of opposition, level/stage of tournament, degree of importance of match in a league context...and so forth.
It would be a hell of a job to do it, mind - and as I recall the thing in question was only done partly (it wasn't nearly comprehensive enough).
And - you'd also have to take the level of the player's own team into consideration. As in - someone like Müller would have a default advantage over many other candidates because he was lucky enough to be German * at the right time in history, etc.
* West German, I should say.
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So recent goals doesn't count?
Of course he has less goals against stronger teams, isn't this the case which applies to everyone else?
I mean, we could do this for fun, let's set criteria of how many goals he scored against say current top 10 and top 20 nation, and also against historical highest top 1 ranking teams, and let's compared with other top players:
Ronaldo against top 20 nation (current ranking, highest ranking):
Sweden - 7 goals (current 18th, highest 2nd)
Netherland - 4 goals (current 11th, highest 1st)
Belgium: 3 goals (current 1st, highest 1st)
Denmark: 3 goals (current 10th, highest 3rd)
Spain: 3 goals (current 8th, highest 1st)
Switzerland: 3 goals (current 15th, highest 3rd)
France: 2 goals (current 4th, highest 1st)
Argentina: 1 goal (current 6th, highest 1st)
Croatia: 1 goal (current 17th, highest 3rd)
Germany: 1 goal (current 14th, highest 1st)
Wales: 1 goal (current 19th, highest 8th)
Total -
29 goals against current top 20
12 goals against current top 10
14 goals against historical top 1
Messi against top 20 nation (current ranking, highest ranking):
Uruguay - 6 goals (current 12th, highest 2nd)
Brazil - 5 goals (currently 2nd, highest 1st)
Columbia - 3 goals (current 16th, highest 3rd)
Mexico - 3 goals (current 9th, highest 4th)
Switzerland - 3 goals (current 15th, highest 3rd)
Croatia - 2 goals (current 17th, highest 3rd)
Spain - 2 goals (current 8th, highest 1st)
France - 1 goal (current 4th, highest 1st)
Germany - 1 goal (current 14th, highest 1st)
Portugal - 1 goal (current 7th, highest 3rd)
United States - 1 goal (current 13th, highest 4th)
Total: -
28 goals against current top 20
11 goals against current top 10
9 goals against historical top 1
Neymar against top 20 nation (current ranking, highest ranking):
United States - 5 goals (current 13th, highest 4th)
Columbia - 4 goals (current 16th, highest 3rd)
Argentina - 3 goals (current 6th, highest 1st)
Croatia - 3 goals (current 17th, highest 3rd)
Uruguay - 3 goals (current 12th, highest 2nd)
Mexico - 2 goals (current 9th, highest 4th)
France - 1 goal (current 4th, highest 1st)
Germany - 1 goal (current 14th, highest 1st)
Italy - 1 goal (current 5th, highest 1st)
Portugal - 1 goal (current 7th, highest 3rd)
Spain - 1 goal (current 8th, highest 1st)
Total:
25 goals agains current top 20
9 goals against current top 10
7 goals against historical top 1
Lukaku against top 20 nation (current ranking, highest ranking):
Croatia: 3
Switzerland: 3
Denmark: 2
Mexico: 2
France: 1
England: 1
Italy: 1
Netherland: 1
Sweden: 1
Wales: 1
Portugal: 1
United Stats: 1
Total:
18 goals against current top 20
8 goals against current top 10
3 goals against historical top 1
Suarez against top 20 nation (current ranking, highest ranking):
Columbia: 4 goals
Argentina: 2 goals
Mexico: 3 goals
Brazil: 1 goal
England: 2 goal
Spain: 1 goal
France: 1 goal
Netherland: 1 goal
Switzerland: 1 goal
Total:
17 goals against top 20
10 goals against top 10
6 goals against historical top 1
Lewandowski against top 20 nation (current ranking, highest ranking):
Denmark - 3 goals
Germany - 2 goals
Sweden - 2 goals
Portugal - 1 goal
Spain - 1 goal
Total:
9 goals against top 20
5 goals against top 10
3 goals against historical top 1
So Ronaldo still rank the highest scoring against current top 10 & top 20 nations, and historical top 1 nations. Then of course he probably scored much more against the mid range (top 21-60) nations, and probably more against cannon folders. But this still doesn't change the fact that he does score more goals against stronger nations in comparison, which often got overlooked here.
Another thing, we also need to consider strength of their respective team, for example, among the above players, Brazil (Neymar) being the strongest team over past decade or so, follow by Belgium (Lukaku) and Argentina (Messi). Portugal (Ronaldo) and Uruguay (Suarez) would be at around similar level, with Poland (Lewandowski) being the weakest. Hence it might be easier to score against top 10-20 team, when you are playing for even stronger team, which makes Ronaldo stats even more impressive.
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I don't like, or rather, don't want to delve too much into your post, not because it's not worth it, I liked it, I just wanna keep myself to a minimum in this thread as I mostly enjoy reading it and tackling something just once in a while. Not gonna contest a lot of what you're saying, as i.e. I do agree/know Messi is more than just goals. I was just pointing that for those that feel 115 goals of his are exacerbated by being against minnows, one can just remove 35 of any of his international goals as they please, and he'll still be leading every other european active player.
Also, you guys here separate a lot group games from knockout games, I don't weight things so much that way. I think in the proper tournaments there's very little margin for errors or slips ups, so in my view being able to contribute with a hattrick 3-3 against Spain, 2 goals and one assist against Hungary in 2016 in what was the last game of the group and in which Portugal were bordering on being out 3 times and all 3 times Ronnie came to the rescue, to me I don't like depreciating those moments just because they are in a group phase vs being in knockout rounds. I don't quite think the same way with CL - because a group has 6 games and there's margin for slip ups. And I'm not gonna lie, if you do perform super well in knockouts, that will only elevate your status, obviously.
I think overall there's been players who have performed better in these major national tournaments (you gave a couple good examples). I also think amidst all the unfairness that comes along with a discussion so passionate like this one, by this point, Messi and Ronaldo surely have put to ground any argument they have not performed to expectations with their national teams. They have both been their best national team player for over a decade, and both have won trophies.
What I bolded is my main point. However, I agree with what you said about group stage goals being important. It’s just that they’re not usually as crucial as knockout goals because it’s ‘win or go home.’
You see the same distinction made with CR’s CL KO goal record, which is rightly lauded. The problem is that this fabled ‘mentality monster’ is anything but in the KO rounds of major international tournaments.
I also do agree though that both Messi and Ronaldo have turned around early mediocrity in their international careers to have by now very creditable records. But I would put quite a few other players’ international careers over theirs, and I think that’s much harder to do with their club careers.
This is a fantastic post. The fact you even had to make it clear is mind boggling
What's the timeline for the countries rankings? Like I don't think in my lifetime that Sweden has considered the 2nd strongest national team in the world.
Good post, a lot of people will still have a bias like if Ronaldo only played against Luxemburgo and teams like that, while overlooking the fact that Messi plays in a far weaker league and hasn't been doing so hot there so far.
I know it's hardly his fault but I bet PSG fans are so frustrated that Messi's basically barely played for them since signing but has managed plenty of games for Argentina.
I’m not a fan of the rankings that much because they mostly don’t make any sense. The teams in the different continental groups do not play each other that much so the metic is horribly flawed. Right now, Mexico, the US, Wales and Senegal are ranked in the top 20. If Ronaldo (or anyone else) scores a goal against one of these teams, is it a big deal in the grand scheme of things? Not really. A goal’s a goal, but it’s not something worthy of amazement.
That’s why I referenced goals v World Cup winning teams. Yes, they’re not the only good teams and yes, their fortunes can fluctuate over time but they’re generally the powerhouses of international football and they are always respected, no matter their current state.
CR has 7 goals in 33 games against those teams. I corrected this stat from my earlier post.
You’ve posted a lot of about CR’s contemporaries, most of whom are not on his level. Let’s compare him with a player that arguably is.
What I know is that his namesake Luis Ronaldo has only 62 international goals but 13 were scored in the KO rounds of major international tournaments and 15 were scored against WC winning nations.
CR has scored 115 goals but 3 of them were in the KO rounds of major int. tourneys and 7 were against WC winning nations. It was 4, but this most recent Euros has helped him out.
Prior to 2021, the hattrick against Spain was the only goals he’d scored against a WC winning team, with the exception of a goal v Argentina.
This is why people say CR is statpadding. We can credit him for his drive, longevity, impeccable fitness record etc etc, but the fact remains that against the big teams and in the biggest games, his record is not that good. Certainly not as good as it is against Andorra et al.
Seriously? Now you're going to pretend Uruguay has been better than Belgium & Netherlands in the past 2 decades or so?
How many has Messi scored in the KO stage of major international tournaments? Despite the Copa being played so often in the past decade, he has 4?
As for goals vs previous WC winners, 6/7 of Ronaldo's have come in major tournaments, whereas all of Messi's have come in friendlies except WC qualifying against Uruguay.
As for statpadding, 10 of Messi's goals have come against Nicaragua, Guatemala, Haiti & Hong Kong.
Seriously? Now you're going to pretend Uruguay has been better than Belgium & Netherlands in the past 2 decades or so?
You can put a laugh emoji but that doesn’t make your point sensible. Over the last 20 years, Uruguay have won the Copa America twice (that’s two more trophies than either Belgium or the Dutch) and reached the final four of the World Cup the same number of times as Belgium and once less than Holland. So yeah, I can easily make that claim. But if you want to disparage Uruguay, there are 8 WC winning nations, not just them. And CR’s goal record against those teams in 7 in 33.
He has 5, but again, this is not strictly about Messi. I’ve already said his KO goal record is poor, if you’ve been paying attention. But it is a bit better than Ronaldo’s.
WC KO goals:
CR - 0
Messi - 0
Euros/Copa KO goals:
CR - 3
Messi - 5
But as I said above, Messi doesn’t just stand or fall by his goals (especially for Argentina), which is one of the reasons he’s a superior player to Ronaldo. If we add just one more stat (assists) you get a better picture:
G/A in KO rounds of major tournaments:
CR - 5
Messi -21
(Messi has 3 assists in the KO rounds of the WC to CR’s 0 and 13 in the CA to CR’s 2 in the Euros).
that’s not even factoring in all the other stuff like chances created, successful dribbles etc.
Messi in fact has more goal contributions in KO rounds of major tournaments than any other player in history. That’s a function of games played (ironically like a lot of Ronaldo’s records) but it still suggests he’s been better at the business end of major tournaments than Ronaldo. As evidenced by his 3 ‘MVP’ trophies to Ronaldo’s zero.
How many were penalties?
10 goals is not a lot. CR has 30-40 goals against teams that are practically semi-professional.
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