Who had the edge this week — Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo? ⚽️
In this video, we break down the performances of both football legends over the past week: their goals, assists, key moments and impact on the pitch.
Whether you’re Team Messi or Team Ronaldo, get ready for stats-driven analysis, highlight reels and the ultimate verdict.
👉 Don’t forget to LIKE, COMMENT which player you thought was better this week, and SUBSCRIBE for more football showdowns every week!
Stay tuned and let the debate begin!
#Messi #Ronaldo #MessivsRonaldo #FootballLegends #SoccerIcons #WeeklyPerformance #FootballHighlights #SoccerHighlights #BestOfWeek #WhoWasBetter #FootballAnalysis #SoccerAnalysis #GoalHighlights #GlobalFootball #UEFA #PremierLeague #LaLiga #MLS
In this video, we break down the performances of both football legends over the past week: their goals, assists, key moments and impact on the pitch.
Whether you’re Team Messi or Team Ronaldo, get ready for stats-driven analysis, highlight reels and the ultimate verdict.
👉 Don’t forget to LIKE, COMMENT which player you thought was better this week, and SUBSCRIBE for more football showdowns every week!
Stay tuned and let the debate begin!
#Messi #Ronaldo #MessivsRonaldo #FootballLegends #SoccerIcons #WeeklyPerformance #FootballHighlights #SoccerHighlights #BestOfWeek #WhoWasBetter #FootballAnalysis #SoccerAnalysis #GoalHighlights #GlobalFootball #UEFA #PremierLeague #LaLiga #MLS
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SportsTranscript
00:00Messi and Ronaldo are two of the best players to grace the beautiful game,
00:03but one of them is the best to ever kick a football.
00:05Special thanks to both of Dominic and DB for collaborating and helping with various stats
00:10and charts. They do great on Twitter and I believe that they need more love and recognition.
00:14Their links are in the description if you want to check them out after finishing with the video
00:18of course. As you saw in the title, Messi is the better player, and in this video I'm going to
00:22explain why. This is not your typical video when you only compare the two of them superficially,
00:27and then the video's creator concludes by who's better. No, I'm not doing that. From the
00:31beginning I'm telling you that Messi is better. Also this video is not a diss on Ronaldo, I'm saying
00:37this especially to the neutrals and the Ronaldo fanboys who are watching. When I say that Messi is
00:41better at something, it doesn't mean that Ronaldo sucks at it. Just like when we say that a jaguar's
00:47jaw is stronger than that of a hyena's, it doesn't take from the fact that hyenas have lethal jaws too.
00:53In this video I'm comparing everything about Lionel and Cristiano, from their goals, playstyles,
00:59roles and abilities. And I'm also tackling serious subjects like why is the media forcing a comparison
01:05that shouldn't even exist. This is a summary of everything that was discussed about this duo from
01:10videos, forums, articles, tweets and debates in the real world and on the internet. This video is going
01:15to be technically long. For some it will feel like a gift from heaven finishing in a blink of an eye,
01:20for the others it's going to be stressful and filled with hard to swallow truths.
01:25So ladies and gentlemen, get some snacks and tie your seat belts because we're going on a ride.
01:31Goals
01:32Messi and Ronaldo are both great goal scorers. The most popular way of comparing these two by
01:37nitpickers is by showing their goal scoring records, but by including some weird rules
01:42to misguide people from the truth. When people say Ronaldo they think goal machine,
01:47when it's Messi they say magical player. While not false at first sight, yeah Messi is magical
01:53and Ronaldo is obviously a great goal scorer. It still misleads fans on thinking that Ronaldo
01:59is the better goal scorer. Their goal record with club and country is as follows. As of the 8th of
02:04June 2019, Ronaldo scored 691 goals in 964 games, with a ratio of 0.71 goals per game. Messi on the
02:14other hand has 670 goals in 616 games, with a ratio of 0.82 goals. Not only he outperforms him in
02:22ratio, but he's only 21 goals away from Chris, while playing 148 games less. Give Messi one more season
02:30and he'll most likely overtake him. This year, Messi surpassed Ronaldo's number of goals in his club
02:36career. Now Messi has 603 and Chris has 601. And of course Ronaldo played more matches. Messi holds
02:44the record for the most goals in a calendar year, 91 in 2012. He also has the record for most goals
02:50scored in a single season, 73 in 2012. He also has the record for the most goals in a single league
02:56season, 50 goals. Messi won the golden boot for a record 6 times, Ronaldo is second with 4. During the
03:039 years where both Leo and Chris spent their careers together in Spain, Messi was 5 times the
03:09goalscorer and Ronaldo was 3. In those 9 years, Ronaldo scored 311 in 292 games and Messi scored
03:16329 in 309 games. The ratio is very similar. 1.0650 for Chris and 1.0647 for Leo. The difference is 0.0003.
03:27What Ronaldo fans like to do is to compare Ronaldo's 9 years in Spain with Messi's whole 15 years in
03:33Spain. In those 9 years, Ronaldo was at the peak of his powers. And they want to compare it with
03:39Messi's 15 years since he was 17. This is just false nitpicking which reinforces some fans' bias towards
03:47downplaying Messi to make Ronaldo look better. The logical one is to compare their career's total league
03:52goals. Since 2002 for Ronaldo and since 2004 for Messi. Chris has 419 in 546 games, a ratio of 0.650.
04:03goals per game. Leo has 419 in 452 games, a ratio of 0.92 goals per game. Coincidentally, as I was
04:12making this video, they have the same amount of goals scored in leagues alone. This makes the
04:17comparison effortless. What's fascinating is that Messi scored as much as Ronaldo while playing 96 games
04:24less. Even if you exclude Cristiano's first four seasons from the equation, he'll still have a worse
04:30ratio. It's until you start counting from August 2006 that his ratio is likely better than that of
04:36Messi's. So Messi has the better ratio. The same number of goals, two more golden boots while playing
04:43three seasons which means 96 games less. Champions League. Fans call Ronaldo Mr. Champions League and
04:51and somehow Messi can't score against English teams and etc etc which is untrue. Ronaldo holds the
04:58record for the most goals scored in the UCL, 127 goals. Messi is second with 112. However, Leo has the
05:06better ratio, 0.83 per game and Chris has 0.75. Mr. Champions League has less goals than Mr. Butler,
05:15the irony. Well, we are not excluding the fact that Ronaldo has the record for the most goals scored
05:21in a single season. Ronaldo also has the upper hand with the UCL goalscorer award, seven goals against
05:26six for Messi. Well now to the domestic cups. Certain fans downplay this competition, some of them don't
05:33like to include this in their calculations. Messi has a ratio of 0.7, Chris has 0.6. I'm 100% sure that if
05:42Ronaldo had the better ratio, you'd see more people talking about the domestic cup. Of course,
05:46I covered the FA, the Spanish and the Italian cups. I'm not going to exclude anything just to make
05:51Messi look better. I'm not doing that. And I do not need to do it. I'm only presenting facts and truth.
05:56I covered their goal stats with clubs. Now let's jump to their international stats with Portugal and
06:02Argentina. International. There's a lot to cover here. First and obviously their goal per game ratio,
06:090.55 for Chris and 0.51 for Messi. Ronaldo is more prolific. But this stat still doesn't show us
06:16the full picture. Messi has the upper hand in friendly games with a ratio of 0.68 against 0.36 for
06:22Ronaldo. Well yeah, friendly matches are not that serious. But what's good about them is that
06:27footballers play against teams from all over the world. From Germany, Uruguay, the US, Japan, etc.
06:34Whereas in World Cup qualifiers and Continental Cups, players are bound to their country's
06:38geographical position. Speaking about Continental Cups, their goal ratio in official games is for
06:43Chris, with 0.61 goals per game against 0.41 for Messi. Ronaldo has a better goal scoring record.
06:51So this means he performs better for his national team, right? Yes, but actually no. This chart by
06:58error rating compares both of their goals by the quality of the opponents. Excluding friendlies.
07:04The smaller the average rank, the better. So Messi scores against teams that are ranked
07:0930 on average. On the other hand, Ronaldo scores against teams that are on average ranked 80.
07:14So Messi scores against better teams on average than Chris. But why? Well, in South America,
07:20they only play the qualifiers for the World Cup. As opposed to Europeans who have two qualifiers,
07:25one for the Euros and another for the World Cup. This gives Ronaldo a chance to encounter weaker teams
07:31more frequently. Because South America is comprised of 12 countries and only 10 of them
07:36challenged in the qualifiers, they put them all in one single group. So we have Brazil, Argentina,
07:42Chile, Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay all competing against each other. In Europe, 54 countries battle
07:49for 13 tickets to the World Cup. And because we have so much countries, it can't be the same format
07:55as in South America. So we make 9 groups of 6 teams. And you end up facing teams like Luxembourg,
08:01Latvia, Faroe Islands, Andorra, San Marino, Armenia, Malta, Liechtenstein, Moldova, etc. etc. etc.
08:07You get my point. 25% of the European teams are ranked 100 or lower in FIFA rankings.
08:14As opposed to 0% in South America that are ranked 100 or lower. And actually all of the South American
08:20teams are ranked 70 or above. For example, in a game versus Andorra who was ranked 203 in 2016,
08:27Ronaldo scored 4 goals. Yep, playing against the 9th worst team in the world has its stat padding
08:33advantages. I think I talked a bit too much about this and I'll just hop on the next category.
08:38But just for fun, how much do you think Messi would've scored if he played for Spain? 100? 150?
08:43Probably more. This would make a great video for the future. Now let's compare their accuracy.
08:49Have you ever thought about how many attempts do Leo and Chris need to score one goal or how
08:54many shots per game they attempt? For starters, and just as an example, let's take this season's
08:59league numbers. In 34 games, Messi scored 36 and attempted 140 shots. Ronaldo scored 21 in 31 games
09:07and attempted 134 shots. So every 3.88 shots, Messi scores a goal. In the other hand, Ronaldo needs
09:156.8 shots to score a goal. This shows that Messi needs less chances to make the difference and it
09:21also means that Messi is more precise. But this is not fair for Ronaldo. I'm not gonna give a conclusion
09:26based on a comparison between peak Messi and a 34-year-old Ronaldo. For that, we're gonna look
09:31at their last 10 club seasons. Here's the chart. To understand better, Ronaldo scored 478 goals and
09:38Messi scored 523. Messi needed less shots to score more goals. 165 shots less per 90 minutes than Ronaldo.
09:48Messi has simply the better finishing technique. This influences their goal-scoring records because it
09:54impacts your chances. Messi misses less big chances than Ronaldo. 14.5 against 23 per season.
10:01Then we have expected goals. If you have no idea about this concept, go look it up for yourselves
10:06because it's long to explain. But basically, Messi outperforms Ronaldo again. So if they were expected
10:11to score 30 goals, Messi actually scores 36.2 and Ronaldo scores 30.8. Furthermore, Messi is consistent
10:18when it comes to outperforming his XG. And Chris is consistent when it comes to underperforming
10:23his expected goals. We talked a lot about stats. Now let's discuss how they score their goals.
10:30Ronaldo is a player who values power, strength. Messi values accuracy, technique. Their approach is
10:37different from each other. I'm not willing to compare hat-tricks, free kicks, braces or penalties
10:42or whatever. They have pretty much the same numbers. So when it comes to goals, what is something that
10:47one of them is good at that the other is not? Let's start with Ronaldo. Headers. He has a better heading
10:53ability. Because of his height and athletic body. And because stats only judge players based
10:59on their ability to defend and score with their headers. We forget that Messi's heading technique
11:04is superb. The guy can easily score baskets with his head. But he doesn't use his head as frequently
11:10as Chris. Ronaldo is also better in long range goals. I said long range, not outside the box. Around 30
11:18meters plus. Why? Because he's heavier and has more power in his feet. Messi on the other hand is
11:26better at finesse goals. Curving the ball into the net. He's also better at lobbing, shipping the ball
11:31over the goalkeeper. Ronaldo is far behind in both of them. Leo is the accurate guy. And Ronaldo is the
11:37power guy. It's self-explanatory. What else? Dribbling and scoring. Messi can dribble
11:43one, two, three, four, five, six players, even the goalkeeper and score. Cristiano has never dribbled
11:51more than three players and scored. Even three players is not usual for him. Messi the other day
11:56scored after putting three guys on the ground. It's a very common thing for him. So here's a question.
12:02Imagine you're put in a situation where your team is losing, you must score. And they give you the
12:06choice between shooting the ball from 20 meters and shooting the ball from 30 meters. Anyone with enough
12:12brain cells will choose 20 meters because it's closer to the net and you have more chances to
12:17score. Remember, Ronaldo has a tendency to attempt scoring from long distances or the six yard box.
12:23But why? Two very different areas, one is harder to score from and the other is far easier to get a
12:29goal from. And now you might ask, is this relevant to our topic? The answer is quite simple. He lacks in
12:36dribbling ability. Instead of receiving the ball and dribbling to get to a better position,
12:41he usually shoots from anywhere or he passes the ball and positions himself in the penalty box.
12:47Long range shots are high risk, low reward attempts. And that's why he needs more attempts to score a
12:53goal compared with Lionel. Leo is the opposite. He's a far better dribbler. So he can take the ball
12:59himself, dribble past a few players and he closes the distance between him and the net. Then he either
13:05passes or scores himself. 1823 meters is a medium risk, medium reward situation. That's why he scores
13:1125% of his shots compared to 15% for Ronaldo. The other reason of why he has a better goal scoring
13:17ratio is because he has more options. He can dribble, then score from outside the box or inside it,
13:24curve it or ship it. You can easily mix these up, but you can't really mix up long range with
13:29heading or tap-ins. It's not only about scoring, it's how you score those goals. For example, we
13:34give two carpenters a task of making a chair. The first guy makes a simple functioning chair. The
13:40second guy goes one mile further and adds decoration, makes it comfortable, stronger, lighter and even
13:45bendable. So both of them achieved their task. Still people will value the second chair a lot more.
13:51I think I've had enough with goals. Let's jump to another category. I mentioned their dribbling
13:56abilities a couple sentences ago. Yeah, let's talk about dribbling. Dribbling ability. The
14:01difference here between the last category is immense. At least 90% of people agree that Messi
14:07is better at dribbling. Well, he's the best dribbler ever. This feels like comparing a mature
14:12lion to a cub, but I'm still gonna do it. There's a lot to talk about here, like why is Leo so great
14:18and why did Ronaldo's dribbling take a huge blow in the last five seasons, considering that he was
14:23pretty good at dribbling when he was younger? Okay, let's go. When we compare their overall or
14:28seasonal dribbling stats, we find that Messi is always on top. In the last 10 years, Messi had
14:332.5k successful dribbles, compared to Ronaldo's 1k dribbles in the same time period. Ronaldo's best
14:41league season was in 2009-2010 with 91 dribbles. Messi's worst league season was in 2015-2016
14:50with 117 dribbles. His best one was in 2011 with 186. When Chris was 23 to 26 years old,
14:58he averaged around 100 dribbles per season. Leo in the same age averaged around 250 dribbles.
15:04Nowadays, Ronaldo averages around 60 dribbles. Surprisingly, Messi still averages around 200,
15:10with the 2017-2018 league season being the second best league season in total dribbles. He was 30 years
15:16old. There are two reasons for Messi's consistency and for Ronaldo's decline, their playstyle and their
15:22role. We'll begin with their playstyle. As I said previously, Ronaldo privileges power and speed.
15:28Messi is more on the technical side. After observing Ronaldo's dribbling for years now,
15:33I came up with the conclusion that he thrives on space. I mean, he needs 10-20 meters ahead of him
15:39to dribble or outpace his opponents. But he rarely does it in tight spaces. Lionel thrives on
15:45both of them. Tight spaces or 20 meters ahead of him, it's all the same for Leo. He mixes speed,
15:50acceleration, body feints, switches of direction, and he sidesteps his opponents. His repertoire far
15:56exceeds that of Cristiano's. Leo has more moves and options to choose from. That's one of the reasons
16:03why he's the better dribbler. So why did Ronaldo's dribbling decline? Simple. As you grow older,
16:08you become weaker and slower. As you hit the age of 30, your maximum heart rate decreases,
16:13which lowers your oxygen's output. Less oxygen means that your muscles will underperform compared
16:19to the past. Football is a mix between aerobic and anaerobic exercises. Cristiano privileges
16:25strength, pace, and stamina. Now imagine 15 years of relying mostly on your athletic body and abilities,
16:32it will eventually burn you out. Getting worse at dribbling was inevitable.
16:37Messi is still consistent because he's great in one-on-one situations and tight spaces. Even
16:42though he dropped in speed as he grew older, like any other footballers, his other abilities helped
16:47sustain his dribbling statistics. And it's also because he never really relies on his physical
16:52abilities. But why is their approach in dribbling so different? Easy. Their ball control. Messi's gross
16:59ball control is so exceptional that you'll hear people say things like, the ball is glued to his
17:05feet. He can go as fast as 33 kilometers per hour and still keep the ball at a close range,
17:11not succeeding one or two feet. A prime example of this is his goal against Athletic Bilbao in the 2015
17:18Copa del Rey. Because Ronaldo can't make the ball glued to his feet, he chooses occasions where there's
17:23enough space for him to tap the ball and run as fast as possible. And that's why he doesn't
17:29attempt dribbling that much. Because a scenario where you are granted a lot of space is not common.
17:35So he'll usually pass the ball to the back because he's not sure he'll make it, sometimes he tries to
17:39dribble and he falls over, useless showboating tricks that lead to nothing, they just waste time and
17:44effort. Dribbling and technique are simply not Ronaldo's cup of tea.
17:48The other aspect of their game that influences their dribbling stats and abilities is their roles.
17:54When he was a better dribbler, Cristiano played as a winger attacker. But as he started shifting
18:00his play to the 18th yard box to become a striker, his dribbling numbers decreased. And this coincides
18:05with the increase in goal scored, as shown in this chart right here. When he shifted to a striker role,
18:12he started scoring more goals. Messi started as a winger too. Then he became a false nine,
18:17and now he's a mix of an attacking midfielder and false winger. His dribbling and goal scoring
18:22stats do not depend on the position he plays. What we understand from this comparison is that Messi
18:27wherever position and role he plays, the stats are the same. But Cristiano's stats changed when he
18:33switched roles. It's as if he needed to change to compete with Messi, especially in goal scoring.
18:38These heat maps show exactly and in more detail what I'm talking about. Now after looking at these,
18:44you might start questioning the reasons why they choose to play like that. Why is Messi playing
18:48more deeply when he could stay closer to the penalty spot and increase his chances of scoring goals?
18:54Just like what Ronaldo does, the reason is quite obvious. Playmaking
18:59Because he's an exceptional player, Messi has the ability and the luxury to drop deep and dictate the
19:03build-up, or the attacking phase of each play, which explains the heat maps. On the contrary,
19:08Rooney is not a playmaker. His vision and creativity are not on par with the conventional
19:13playmakers or passers, but he still puts up some good numbers. Messi has the most assists, 276 against
19:20227 for Ronaldo, a ratio of 0.33 versus 0.23. So Messi has an assist every three games and Ronaldo every
19:28four games. Next up is expected assists. It's the likelihood that a pass will result in an assist.
19:35It measures the pass quality of a player based on the type of a pass and the finishing location
19:39of the pass. In essence, it shows us if a given player is creating quality chances.
19:45In the last five seasons, Chris has been underperforming his XA by minus 0.52.
19:50In contrast, Messi is outperforming his XA by two assists. This tells us that Messi is making better
19:56quality passes and obviously taking more risks. The next logical step is to compare their big chances
20:01created. And again, Leo obliterates the opposition. He has four times more chances
20:06created on average in the span of the last four league seasons. The last statistic in the category,
20:11key passes. In the last 10 seasons, Leo made more key passes, 0.6 per 90 minutes on average,
20:18more in the span of the last 10 seasons. Key passes are not a good measurement for quantifying
20:23a player's playmaking contribution, because they are basically a pass that precedes a shot.
20:28So if I give a pass to a teammate and he decides to shoot from 50 meters for no reason,
20:34far away of the goal post, whether it's scored or not, it still counts as a key pass.
20:41Furthermore, Chris has lower quality key passes because he has four times less big chances created
20:46and he underperforms his XA. Just make a comparison between how much assists Messi has compared to his
20:53total big chances and do the same for Ronaldo. For example, last season between the league and the
20:58Champions League, Messi assisted 16 goals, he created 41 big chances. Ronaldo assisted 10 goals,
21:05he created 13 big chances. You see, Messi created three times more big chances, but he only has 1.6
21:12times more assists. There's even a statistic that claims that Messi should have had at least 25 assists
21:17this season. In conclusion, and for the stat fanatics, Messi is statistically a better passer than Ronaldo.
21:24Now let's actually talk about passing, real passing, besides stats. Both of them are capable of
21:31making great passes, that's obvious. But what separates the two is consistency. Leo is consistently
21:38consistent at providing his teammates with high-quality clear-cut chances and true balls,
21:44and Ronaldo is consistently inconsistent at doing the same thing. If you are not convinced, go watch any
21:50highlight reel or their actual games and you'll see for yourself. We can easily claim that Messi is
21:56the greatest playmaker in history. I said playmaker, not passer. You can easily claim him as the best
22:01in this field. Some will say no he's not, others say it's debatable. Yeah, if it's debatable, it still
22:07means that he's one of the best in history. In contrast, Chris is not. Unlike Chris, Leo is the best
22:14in one certain type of passing, and it's true balls. Either on the ground or in the air,
22:19Messi, with his incredible vision, will find his teammates in the most unexpected occasions.
22:25And true balls, obviously, are the hardest in football and the most risky ones. We also should
22:30not forget that Messi's link-up play is unparalleled. He's one of the rare players who have consistently
22:34scored magnificent pinpoint goals after performing fast one-twos with his teammates. This is proof that
22:39Messi's ball control, off-the-ball movements, creativity, and anticipation are immense.
22:45Leo is better at playmaking for an important reason. He is more of a team player. That's it.
22:50He really doesn't care much about individual success. If he could, he would switch individual
22:55awards for team trophies. This is not a video rant on Christian or something. It might feel like one
23:00for some, but it's not. I can't help it. Messi's just too good. However, Messi is not complete,
23:06of course. But he's still the closest player in history to that title. Ronaldo is one of the
23:11greatest goal scorers in history. And that's it. Now, I have covered most of the essentials,
23:16goal scoring, dribbling, technique, and playmaking. When it comes to trophies, Messi has more than
23:20Cristiano. Well, I don't believe that trophies should be a measurement for comparing their qualities.
23:24They should only be used for comparing their legacies. If Ronaldo had more trophies,
23:28you'll see more people undermining Messi's trophy record, which doesn't make any sense.
23:33Maradona, Cruyff, and Pelé have less trophies than Ronaldo. But the general consensus ranks them
23:40above him. Who's more clutch? When it comes to finals, Messi again has more goals and assists.
23:45There's even a better way to determine it. By looking at a certain stat from whoscored.com.
23:50After the end of every game, they reward the best performer, the title of the man of the match.
23:56In the last 10 years, Messi has gathered the most. 237, Cristiano is second with 140. Self-explanatory.
24:04There's a myth that I want to debunk in a minute about Messi not performing as well as Ronaldo
24:08in international games in their respective careers. Tell me, how many best player awards did they win
24:14in tournaments with their countries? Ronaldo 0, Messi 2. The World Cup Golden Ball in 2014
24:21and Copa America's best player award. Who was the best at his peak? Ronaldo is easier to quantify.
24:26I can safely say that in 2012 he was at the peak of his powers, scoring 69 goals and assisting 17 goals
24:33and even being a better dribbler overall. Because of his consistency and his qualities in different
24:39aspects of the game, you can't determine his peak. 2012, Messi had more goals. In 2015 he was more
24:46complete, more of a playmaker. 2009 he was a great dribbler, more agile and faster. In 2018 he has
24:52become a lot better at set pieces while still keeping his qualities in other areas of the game.
24:58I can go on and talk about how these players are treated differently by the opposition. One is
25:03constantly being man-marked and surrounded by multiple players and the other is marked once
25:08in a blue moon. A journalist asked Giorgio Colini about how to stop these two. For Ronaldo he said,
25:14you try to not leave him alone, don't let him shoot on his right foot. And for Leo he said,
25:20just make the sign of the cross. Which means only a deus ex machina can help you against him. Go on
25:26youtube or any platform that supports and shares videos or any documentary and you always find
25:32footage of the young Messi, teenage Messi, kid Messi, doing keep ups until his knees are tired,
25:38going solo against the whole defense, doing unimaginable tricks for a kid of his age,
25:43casually scoring super hat-tricks every match. You'll find tens of videos showcasing his abilities.
25:49In fact Messi was a football phenomenon when he was still a 12 year old. Chris was not. You never
25:54find any clips demonstrating any second of his gameplay as a kid. You'll even find clips on Johan
25:59Cruyff and Diego Maradona. And they are 3-4 decades older than Chris. I don't need to go further,
26:06my argument is clear as crystal. Finally let's head to the last part of the topic. Why are there people who
26:12still think that Ronaldo is better than Messi and why did this so-called rivalry come to exist?
26:17For starters players have agents. Agents are people who handle business and legal deals for
26:22professional athletes. From negotiating contracts, sponsor deals, handling taxes, etc. The problem
26:28with Messi is that his agent is his dad. His dad is not a really influential guy with businesses all
26:33around the world with multiple connections compared with Ronaldo's agent Jorge Mendes. Ronaldo is quite the
26:39lucky guy here because his agent Mendes is a Portuguese businessman and a multi-millionaire who
26:44owns an agency that provides services to more than 50 players like De Maria, James Rodriguez, Pepe,
26:50De Gea, Quintrao, Diego Silva, Quaresma, etc. Most of them are from Portugal. The difference between these
26:56two agents is staggering. One is not present in the public scene and the other is recognized as the best
27:02football agent by his peers. He even won eight best agent of the year awards. Yeah even these guys
27:08have awards. Insane. Having the best agent is still not enough to rival Messi in popularity and that's
27:15when Florentino Perez comes into action. Papa Perez. Perez is a billionaire businessman. His net worth exceeds
27:23two billion dollars. For comparison Barca's current president Bartomeu has a net worth of a hundred
27:28million dollars. Perez runs Spain's largest construction company Grupo ACS. Perez is a Real
27:34Madrid fan. He loves Real Madrid and as an accomplished businessman he knows how to attract sponsors
27:40and investors and one of the best ways to do it is to have the Ballon d'Or winner in Real Madrid.
27:45In the football world winning trophies and having the best players is the best way to attract money
27:49sponsors and that's why in the last years the Ballon d'Or winner was always won by a Real Madrid player.
27:55Well if you are still not convinced in 2002 they won the UCL. Zidane was the first contender
28:00for the Ballon d'Or of course. Until guess what happened next? France crashes in the world cup from
28:06the group stages. Brazil wins the world cup. Ronaldo finishes as the goal scorer after netting two goals
28:13in the final. Perez can't ignore this opportunity. He buys him from Inter Milan. He lands a three-year deal
28:18with Siemens Mobile after not having a shirt sponsor the previous season. A few months later
28:23Ronaldo wins the Ballon d'Or. Acquiring the best players and winning awards helps football clubs have
28:29easier deals with investors. It also helps that Real Madrid are the capital's team. They are backed by
28:34the bank, the press, Messi plays for Barcelona, they toll Catalan, the press writes in Catalan. There is
28:41political and historical tension between these two parties. In Madrid they speak in Spanish, Spanish is more
28:46popular. France football even selects a journalist every year for Madrid who works for Diario, which
28:52mainly covers Real Madrid's news. In the football world you can easily manipulate who wins this or who
28:57doesn't. For example in the 2018 Ballon d'Or, one of the journalists who was listed for voting did not
29:02even exist. I actually made a video about this topic six months ago, the link is in the description.
29:08Social media presence is a new factor that helps celebrities or individuals to grow in popularity.
29:13When you compare Leo's and Cristiano's media presence, you find that Ronaldo is taking it more
29:18seriously. Ronaldo is present in Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Messi is only present on Facebook
29:22and Instagram. The frequency of posting is what made Cristiano have more followers overall on social
29:27media. Let's take Instagram as an example. It's the platform where they have the most followers.
29:32Cristiano posts every day, sometimes twice a day. In fact, he has 2.6 publications since the day he
29:38created his account. Leo's uploads are inconsistent, sometimes he'll post back to back for 3 consecutive
29:44days and sometimes he'll go on hiatus for more than a month. He has less than 500 publications since
29:50the day he joined. Even when Leo won the 2015 Ballon d'Or, he didn't post anything about it, not even a
29:57picture of him with the award, compared to Ronaldo who posted 7 pictures with the 2017 Ballon d'Or award.
30:03The lesson to be learned here is not to follow Messi's approach for marketing your work. Messi speaks
30:08on the pitch. Ronaldo compensates that lack with always being present on social media. And there's
30:13nothing wrong with that. The fake donations. Giving donations is a great gesture. With it,
30:20you can hit two birds with one stone. The first is doing good deeds and the second is enhancing your
30:25public image. The 7.8 million dollar fake donation to Nepal's earthquake victims. The rumors were rejected by
30:32by Save the Children NGO. Recently, the rumors around his donation to Palestine were also classified
30:37as fake. The issue with these rumors is that it's hard to undo them. When it's spread by the media at a
30:44large scale, if it is not corrected in a few hours, it's already too late. Besides the rumors or fake
30:50donations, both of these players generally care for children and helping oppressed people. They are
30:56humans after all. What's keeping this rivalry alive is the marketers. Money. It's not the media.
31:01The media works as a mediator between investors and fans. Props to whoever is pulling the strings
31:07and marketing this supposed rivalry. Props to them they found an easy target. Social media helped fool
31:13this rivalry. They found a perfect scenario. Two opposing parties that always fight each other. So,
31:19they create more tension by providing goods and merch. In short, this rivalry generates a lot of cash.
31:24Just like Apple and Samsung in the tech world, or PlayStation and Xbox in video games,
31:29Republicans and Democrats in politics. Competition generates more money. Comparing these two players
31:35is a disservice to Lionel Messi. Leo is more than just goals. Thank you guys for watching this video.
31:41I'm thankful to the people of Twitter, YouTube and the ones from Reddit too. I'm also thankful to both
31:46of my friends Dominic and DB for helping me with various stats and charts. Dominic is a Messi fanatic who
31:50makes great tweets. Sometimes he surprises you with the most unheard of Messi stats. Great guy.
31:56DB makes football charts. He compares players, etc. He makes better charts than the ones I showed you.
32:02Here's a sample of things he makes. Beautiful stuff. Both of their links are in the description.
32:08I have some really good ideas coming soon, so subscribe and activate the bell to not miss any of my future
32:14uploads. You can also go and watch my previous video on Hazard, or the one about why Argentina
32:18sucks in the World Cup, or the one about the reasons that football awards like the Ballon d'Or are not
32:23serious anymore. Thanks for watching. Yeah, see ya.
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