Pretty much this. Goals per game (or minutes played) is a very meaningful stat.
Goals per shot is utterly useless.
Messi v Ronaldo | Contains double your daily salt allowance
- Thread starter Rado_N
- Start date
- Status
Goals per shot is utterly useless.
No. I'm a United fan of 30 years old and Ronaldo was my favourite player to watch ever since his Bolton debut. He was an outstanding dribbler and one of the most entertaining players to watch and even when everyone wrote him off as a one trick pony I reckoned he was going to be the best player in the world one day and I was glad to be proven right. I used to hate Barca and Messi because they were annoyingly good back when we were the 2nd best team in the world and even though I knew deep down that Messi was probably better, I still preferred Ronaldo and favoured him and Madrid to do well over the smug tyrants of Barcelona. I can't remember at what point I let go of that grudge and started to appreciate Messi without bias, but even when I sung Viva Ronaldo at the Stretford end I knew Ronaldo, despite all his obvious ability, wasn't as good of a dribbler as Messi. It's really not debatable at all.
Ok, so if you take almost all the shots of your team and score a low percentage of goals it's better than taking less percentage of your team shots and score the same amount of goals. Very enlightning.
Please point out where I EVER said it’s better?
I didn't say it was you, GatoLoco said it and you agreed.Please point out where I EVER said it’s better?
The fact is that Juventus has lesser goals than last season.
Dybala scored 22 goals in serie A last season but he has only 2 goals this season.
I don't see Juventus benefits from Ronaldo taking many shots because his teammate take less.
And what's the conclusion if you take a 11 years bracket instead of a 5 months bracket?
When did he ever say it's better?
Probably the worst ref performance of all time.
I can't think of one that's remotely comparable. I remember watching that game. I hated Chelsea at the time. The first few decisions made me laugh. Then I was like... Eh? Then I was all Drogba-esque.
On-topic. Y'know what the most overrated aspect of Ronaldo's play is for me? The free kicks. He kicks the valve hard, sometimes it moves, sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time it hits the wall.
When did he ever say it's better?
I remember the ref in Real Madrid Bayern as bad as this one or worst
Which one?
Ronaldo scored clearly in offside and Vidal was sent off when, I believe it was Casemiro, should have been sent off minutes before.
Yea, Casemiro did enough to be sent off twice in that game. Which isn't unusual. Shocking officiating all around.
Messi is more of a midfielder and CR7 a striker. It´s the same with Dembélé and Mbappe. I wouldn´t compare them, because they are just so different.
You agreed with this statement. @Cal?
This whole line of debate blows up when you notice that Messi has been outshooting and outscoring Cristiano Ronaldo from outside the area for almost 3 seasons in a row
What's going to be the next excuse, that many of those goals could've come from free kicks?. Michelacosta stats give Messi 25 goals from FK since 2015/2016, theres 32 goals in that graph, Ronaldo has scored 9 FK, there's 15 goals there.
The 5% figure and Messi "cutting his loses". In those seasons Ronaldo attempted 388 shots from outside the area for 15 goals, that's a 3'8%. Messi has a 6'6% (25 goals from 378 attempts). If Messi thinks he has worse conversion rate than Ronaldo from outside the box he's gravely mistaken.
So, who has that huge range, is Ronaldo better at this because he can score 1/2 screamers per season?.
He's more productive while being less conservative as he shoots more at that range nowadays, and has better conversion ratio from far than 09/12 Ronaldo who was pissing screamers to the sky. He's just more rational, scoring a screamer might be a good feeling, even cure some depressions, but 99% of the time it's not what his team needs from him to score a goal.
"But prime vs prime..." nope, on his best season (11/12) Ronaldo scored 10 goals from outside the area. Messi has reached 10 in 16/17 and 09/10. Ronaldo needed 164 shots for those 10 goals (6% conversion), Messi needed 87 (11% conversion).
Career wise Messi has 78 goals, Ronaldo 59. The only things in which Ronaldo beats Messi in this aspect might be A) goals scored from 30+ meters (around 5 in his whole career?) and B) the extra 3 meters of distance he shoots from to score compared to Messi, which barely even matter as 10 minutes of footage shows that Messi covers those 3 extra meters Ronaldo has in his legs with an extra touch or a dribble
Those two videos basically sum up the difference between their mid/long range scoring.
I didn't talk about distances in my post.
I wasn't making a comparison between Ronaldo and Messi either.
I was only speaking about the ability to finish the plays. After quick transitions, with more imprecise passing. Or simply about the ability to create the shots on his own, which is a part of Ronaldo's style and should be seen as a virtue.
I wasn't making a comparison between Ronaldo and Messi either.
I was only speaking about the ability to finish the plays. After quick transitions, with more imprecise passing. Or simply about the ability to create the shots on his own, which is a part of Ronaldo's style and should be seen as a virtue.
Indeed, absolutely shocking.
Vidal was rightly sent off for a clear 2nd yellow, and Bayern were awarded a non-existent penalty in that game.
Being able to get on the end of direct attacks is great.
This whole line of debate blows up when you notice that Messi has been outshooting and outscoring Cristiano Ronaldo from outside the area for almost 3 seasons in a row
What's going to be the next excuse, that many of those goals could've come from free kicks?. Michelacosta stats give Messi 25 goals from FK since 2015/2016, theres 32 goals in that graph, Ronaldo has scored 9 FK, there's 15 goals there.
The 5% figure and Messi "cutting his loses". In those seasons Ronaldo attempted 388 shots from outside the area for 15 goals, that's a 3'8%. Messi has a 6'6% (25 goals from 378 attempts). If Messi thinks he has worse conversion rate than Ronaldo from outside the box he's gravely mistaken.
So, who has that huge range, is Ronaldo better at this because he can score 1/2 screamers per season?.
He's more productive while being less conservative as he shoots more at that range nowadays, and has better conversion ratio from far than 09/12 Ronaldo who was pissing screamers to the sky. He's just more rational, scoring a screamer might be a good feeling, even cure some depressions, but 99% of the time it's not what his team needs from him to score a goal.
"But prime vs prime..." nope, on his best season (11/12) Ronaldo scored 10 goals from outside the area. Messi has reached 10 in 16/17 and 09/10. Ronaldo needed 164 shots for those 10 goals (6% conversion), Messi needed 87 (11% conversion).
Career wise Messi has 78 goals, Ronaldo 59. The only things in which Ronaldo beats Messi in this aspect might be A) goals scored from 30+ meters (around 5 in his whole career?) and B) the extra 3 meters of distance he shoots from to score compared to Messi, which barely even matter as 10 minutes of footage shows that Messi covers those 3 extra meters Ronaldo has in his legs with an extra touch or a dribble
Those two videos basically sum up the difference between their mid/long range scoring.
Except for the fact that Messi doesn’t really score more than Ronaldo, pray tell why not shooting is a good thing when scoring is the aim of the game?
Ronaldo shoots from impossible angles when his teammates are in better positions. Look at Dybala's goalscoring this season compared to last season.
@Cal?
Not sure if anyone has ever asked you this. I respect your opinion on why you think Ronaldo is better, but who do you enjoy watching more?
Not sure if anyone has ever asked you this. I respect your opinion on why you think Ronaldo is better, but who do you enjoy watching more?
Look at the number of games Dybala has missed.
Ronaldo is signed to be the focal point of their attack, hardly surprising Dybala is scoring less.
Ronaldo, I prefer a more direct style than Barca’s
Yeah I often wonder myself what I’d rather pay more to go see, a Messi v spurs type performance or a Ronaldo v Roma. Think Messi is probably better value for money on individual entertainment over the season though.
If you said Messi they would have to close the thread.
Ronaldo has obviously made a simply unbelievable career being a phenomenal goal scorer, but can anyone really claim - with a straight face and without an erection - that he’s even close to being as good an overall footballer as Messi? I find the notion simply too incredulous to be believable.
Both of them benefit massively from the envirmonent they play in to be able to have this high volume shots playstyle often taking a chance from bad positions/far away.
Elite Forwards/Strikers in the 80s/90s like Van Basten would get about 2,5 to 3 shots/game. Even you argue Cristiano is the best ever at 'generating chances' due to his positioning or instinct how much better can he possibly be at that than someone like Van Basten?
It's hard to answer that one, but just imagine Van Basten instead of Higuain at Madrid, Napoli, Juventus, Milan and now Chelsea. The injuries are the unique limitation. Other than that it's not hard to imagine significantly better figures than the ones Higuain got. And Higuain's figures are quite excellent.
Last edited:
Veering off topic here, but what's crazy is that the same is likely true for Gerd Müller. At least as far as the ~50 still available full games go. Not quite as low as your numbers, but almost certainly below 4 for these games.
If I haven't miscounted, he took 9 shots in the four knockout games for the 72 EUROs combined (2,25 per game), scoring 5 times.
Indeed. After the endless statistical data, gerrymandering and selective arguments, we come to this.
Messi has spent his career so far being compared to Maradona and the other greats, being placed at the same table with them. Ronaldo has spent his career so far being compared only to Messi.
They play in the same era and the comparisons are forced. It's mainly media campaigns and generating something for the views and clicks. Barcelona vs Real Madrid, Nike vs Adidas, PES vs FIFA, that sort of thing. The rivalry was encouraged and built up by certain parties, which include Ronaldo himself.
I think in a while, once both of them have retired, the comparisons will stop because there will be very little interest to build it up and add fuel to the fire. I don't think history will have any doubt as to which one was the better player, it's just a temporary thing now. All-time greats don't have to force the debate, they don't have to sport goatees and have their agents force the notion that they are the best, that they deserve all the awards etc. True all-time greats are naturally compared to one another because that's where they belong, in the same discussion, at the same table. Seeing Messi compared with Maradona is normal for me. Seeing Ronaldo compared with Maradona would have been laughable.
Last edited:
ROUND 30095956960.. FIGHT!
Not surprising Ashley Cole found it harder to defend against Messi.
To be honest, Ashley Cole owned them both! One of the few players to make them look just... ordinary!
Wrote this post in the La Liga thread but it didn't belong there, so I decided to post it here..
Yeah, of course you weren't talking about Ronaldo. Who are you trying to kid, honestly? In every fecking post of yours one can extract some argument that in one way or another makes Ronaldo look better or Messi look worse. You subtly sneak in those arguments again and again and at some point in the future you bring them up in the actual discussion as if they were facts (something like "Rakitic, ancient-Iniesta and Busquets are a better midfield than Kroos, Modric and Casemiro", "Alba is a better left back than Marcelo" or "Messi's playstyle makes his teams extremely dependent on him" or something along those lines). I'm annoyed of myself that I again took the bait and started this argument with you because it (rightly) annoys many users in here that this discussion is so omnipresent but it is simply impossible to resist the irk to call you out for this kind of stuff.
Your posts in this thread are perfect examples of how you are again and again twisting, turning and bending arguments until they fit your narrative. Messi has played in countless different setups, successfully occupied much more different roles and positions than Ronaldo, can outplay defenses in many more ways than CR7 and so forth, so what's your point? You are completely superficial in one direction ("Argentina and Barca's whole approach consists of giving the ball to Messi and this is of course his fault, he simply makes it incredible hard for tactical geniuses like Martino or Maradona who immediately had unimaginable success once they coached teams in which he wasn't there") and super in-depth in the other ("Yeah, of course Real Madrid struggles now that Ronaldo is gone but here are 7 essays consisting of 63 pages with 547 different reasons why that is actually not the case and everyone who doesn't agree with my argumentation has no clue about football and I will answer them with 50 laughing smileys that document my and Ronaldo's superiority").
By the way, a good description of how versatile Messi actually is this video:
This illustrates how ridiculous those things you claim actually are. Really, I can only repeat what I said in the last post. From time to time one has to reflect what you are actually arguing in this very moment in order to understand how far from reality your claims are. You constantly criticize Messi for being too good for his team. When Barca recently performed underwhelmingly your first instinct was to criticize Messi although he wasn't even on the pitch. You suggested that Rakitic was a better midfielder than fecking Toni Kroos and argued he had a better world cup for Croatia than Luka Modric. You criticized Messi for not being compatible with Dybala yet since Ronaldo plays for Juve the guy can't score for his life and has a siginficantly less important role in the squad. But of course you, and only you, know the true reason for that (which of course isn't the far too obvious explanation that Ronaldo has changed the environment for him but the supposed "fact" that the midfield around Pjanic has coincidently degressed the very moment Ronaldo joined the team). But do you know what my favourite part of that essay was? You said that Dybala scored less because he had to drop deep in order to build up the play from the midfield, the exact role Messi is executing in Barcelona without any negative effect on his productivity. So when the team performs bad, Messi falls back and takes over the responsibility and still manages to finish attacks while Ronaldo stays up front, scores less and leaves the task of initiating attacks to another team mate (who then scores less, too) but somehow this makes Ronaldo more versatile and Messi a challenge for the manager. What the actual f*ck? Unbelievable.
Yet the very moment a Barca fans says something negative about a player other than Messi you are immediately pointing your finger on him and are all like "THERE! Did you see that? He again criticized a Barca player in order to make Messi look better! These Barca fans are completely mental!"
You are really, truly incredible.
Yeah, of course you weren't talking about Ronaldo. Who are you trying to kid, honestly? In every fecking post of yours one can extract some argument that in one way or another makes Ronaldo look better or Messi look worse. You subtly sneak in those arguments again and again and at some point in the future you bring them up in the actual discussion as if they were facts (something like "Rakitic, ancient-Iniesta and Busquets are a better midfield than Kroos, Modric and Casemiro", "Alba is a better left back than Marcelo" or "Messi's playstyle makes his teams extremely dependent on him" or something along those lines). I'm annoyed of myself that I again took the bait and started this argument with you because it (rightly) annoys many users in here that this discussion is so omnipresent but it is simply impossible to resist the irk to call you out for this kind of stuff.
Your posts in this thread are perfect examples of how you are again and again twisting, turning and bending arguments until they fit your narrative. Messi has played in countless different setups, successfully occupied much more different roles and positions than Ronaldo, can outplay defenses in many more ways than CR7 and so forth, so what's your point? You are completely superficial in one direction ("Argentina and Barca's whole approach consists of giving the ball to Messi and this is of course his fault, he simply makes it incredible hard for tactical geniuses like Martino or Maradona who immediately had unimaginable success once they coached teams in which he wasn't there") and super in-depth in the other ("Yeah, of course Real Madrid struggles now that Ronaldo is gone but here are 7 essays consisting of 63 pages with 547 different reasons why that is actually not the case and everyone who doesn't agree with my argumentation has no clue about football and I will answer them with 50 laughing smileys that document my and Ronaldo's superiority").
By the way, a good description of how versatile Messi actually is this video:
This illustrates how ridiculous those things you claim actually are. Really, I can only repeat what I said in the last post. From time to time one has to reflect what you are actually arguing in this very moment in order to understand how far from reality your claims are. You constantly criticize Messi for being too good for his team. When Barca recently performed underwhelmingly your first instinct was to criticize Messi although he wasn't even on the pitch. You suggested that Rakitic was a better midfielder than fecking Toni Kroos and argued he had a better world cup for Croatia than Luka Modric. You criticized Messi for not being compatible with Dybala yet since Ronaldo plays for Juve the guy can't score for his life and has a siginficantly less important role in the squad. But of course you, and only you, know the true reason for that (which of course isn't the far too obvious explanation that Ronaldo has changed the environment for him but the supposed "fact" that the midfield around Pjanic has coincidently degressed the very moment Ronaldo joined the team). But do you know what my favourite part of that essay was? You said that Dybala scored less because he had to drop deep in order to build up the play from the midfield, the exact role Messi is executing in Barcelona without any negative effect on his productivity. So when the team performs bad, Messi falls back and takes over the responsibility and still manages to finish attacks while Ronaldo stays up front, scores less and leaves the task of initiating attacks to another team mate (who then scores less, too) but somehow this makes Ronaldo more versatile and Messi a challenge for the manager. What the actual f*ck? Unbelievable.
Yet the very moment a Barca fans says something negative about a player other than Messi you are immediately pointing your finger on him and are all like "THERE! Did you see that? He again criticized a Barca player in order to make Messi look better! These Barca fans are completely mental!"
You are really, truly incredible.
Bodybag
Great post, Zehner. Kudos.
- Status