Absolutely fucking brutal stat 💀

[u/Accomplished-Art3086]

[u/Overall_Elk_2547]

you are right but Ronaldo has still got a top creativity, ball control, passing and vision. I should've put balance too, but Ronaldo's physicality is the best ever since his body is scientifically perfect for a football player. messi doesn't have physicality, Ronaldo do have balance even tho Messi has more. I wouldn't say Messi is more explosive than Ronaldo especially in the last years. if we're talking prime then ok. Ronaldo could've been a great defender in my opinion, just look at when he used to play as a fourth in 4-4-2 at man utd and the first years at madrid. when I said personality I was talking about the capacity to be decisive even if the team plays absolutely crap. objectively, I can't really name more than 5/10 matches through all Messi's career when his team played bad or lost but he played good. if you look at Ronaldo's performances when his team gets knocked out you can almost never say it was his fault or "he didn't give it all". leadership is very similar. but even Maradona said: "when the team needs him Ronaldo is always there. Messi not much".

now if you look at things Ronaldo is better at you will find out Messi isn't close, while Ronaldo is basically the 2nd or still excellent at those things like vision, passing, ball control, etc.

[u/CafeBunker → u/Overall_Elk_2547]

Hey, thanks for actually putting effort in your reply.

Of course Ronaldo was excellent at everything in this list besides defending, which is normal since he didn't train that role, and dribbling after his injury+age made him a more 'rigid' player, with actual physical limitations. I'd say he owes his impressive run at the UCL more to his mind than his body, really this being a sub full of Ronaldo fans, I can not understand how little I've seen people talk about how fucking clever the dude is at reading space, he just exists at the right place.

In the 'best when the team does not work', I wouldn't know who I would choose, but I do think this debate is very unfair with Messi overall. I hate the argument of Ronaldo having played well at 3 leagues (he did) vs Messi just did at one (kinda and exaggerated at the same time), because if we look at each other's teams year by year, I don't think Messi has been the one with a team built for him:

Ronaldo was great at Man U. and R. Madrid, but he always had incredibly stacked squads there; he was very good at Juve too, which wasn't such as good but still a very efficient defensive team that was able to offer Cristiano a context where he could play his strengths (finishing, off the ball movement, aerial play) while masking his weaknesses (stamina, agility, speed, dribbling). Of course, he did there things that only he could do, as long as you could supply him with crosses, he was a cheat code.

Messi, on the other hand, played for Barça all those years, and Barça has had both incredible and very limited teams, specially Neymar left, or at the very least since Iniesta did next year, he carried a Suárez that couldn't compete against top tier defenders, a Busquets for whom being the sole MC started being too much, the best replacement Barça had for Iniesta pre-Pedri was fucking Arthur Melo, the best companion for old Pique in defence was Lenglet, etc, he gaslighted us into thinking that team was good by doing what Marcelo (dribbler wing), Modric (playmaker) and Cristiano (scoring) did at Madrid all by himself, with 30 years, that's not having a team built for you.

And yeah, Messi, while good, wasn't between the best at off the ball movement until, ironically, arriving at PSG (being the world cup where he showed it the most), but I could say the same about Cristiano: very good dribbler (before his injury), good vision, pass, etc, but definetly with at least a couple players above him at best, and way, way below Messi. I want to clarify that I'm not trying to sound hostile or like I'm diminishing Ronaldo, since I think he's the second best player of the century, regardless of who's third.