Over the last 15 years, soccer has been dominated by the two phenoms of Leonel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The two adversaries have won almost every award there is to win and, despite their ages (Ronaldo being 38 and Messi being 36), it looks like they have no intentions of slowing down. However this begs the question: which one is the best? 

Messi is the better player; there are just too many reasons for why. First, his statistics are better. Messi has a much higher goal to appearance ratio, Messi has 819 goals in 1041 appearances, which is a 78.6% goal to appearance ratio. While Ronaldo has 853 goals for 1183 appearances, which is only a 72.3% goal to appearance ratio.

Second, Messi is a better team player. Ronaldo, although being a great player, can often be seen as selfish because of his lack of assists and key passes compared to Messi. Messi has given over 350 assists in his time, while Ronaldo has given under 250 assists. So while some may argue Ronaldo is a better player because he is better at scoring, having Messi on the team will lead to having a more successful team because of his ability to be a team player.

Third, the world cup. Ronaldo is a great player, he and Messi have not only almost won every individual trophy, but they have also won almost every team trophy. But the difference between Messi and Ronaldo is that Messi has won the most important one of all, The World Cup. Not only has Ronaldo not won the world cup, but he has never come close. Messi had been to the finals once before he won it, while Ronaldo has not been to the final at all. 

Finally, Ronaldo might not have the same character, because he is very image based. He is all about looks. He is the most followed person on Instagram, which could contribute to his spoiled nature. Messi is humble; he doesn’t care about looks, he isn’t shallow like Ronaldo.