Lionel Messi pips Cristiano Ronaldo to Player of the Decade title

Barcelona star Lionel Messi has pipped his long-term rival Cristiano Ronaldo to be named as the Player of the Decade.

The Argentine star prevailed over the Portuguese icon in the vote for the best footballer between 2011 and 2020 in a ranking by the IFFHS – the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, as per Diario AS.

Both players dominated player awards across the decade and led their sides to multiple titles in that timeframe – Messi won six league titles, two Champions League crowns and five domestic cup titles while Ronaldo’s sides have won four league crowns, four Champions Leagues and two domestic cups.

On an individual basis, each player won four Ballon d’Or awards in that timespan.

Messi’s future has been at the heart of Barcelona news in recent weeks; he has netted 651 goals in 757 appearances for the club.

Ronaldo was the spearhead for Real Madrid until his move to Italy in 2018.

Ronaldo netted a remarkable club record 450 goals in 438 appearances for Los Blancos between 2009 and 2018 and has 88 goals in 113 outings for Juventus.

He has scored 764 senior goals throughout the entirety of his career and looks set to continue this trajectory for several seasons yet.

Tags Cristiano Ronaldo Lionel Messi

9 Comments

  1. 100% fair call. Messi is also the best player of the 21st century and the best ever alongside Pele. He scores, he assists, he dribbles, he creates chances, he defends, he literally does everything. Well done God of football, Leo Messi !

    1. FIFA Internet vote The results of FIFA’s internet Poll were as follows:[6] PlayerNationalityPercentage1Diego Maradona Argentina53.60%2Pelé Brazil18.53%3Eusébio Portugal6.21%4Roberto Baggio Italy5.42%5Romário Brazil1.69%6Marco van Basten Netherlands1.57%7Ronaldo Brazil1.55%8Franz Beckenbauer Germany1.50%9Zinedine Zidane France1.34%10Rivaldo Brazil1.19%11Zico Brazil1.15%12Garrincha Brazil1.08%13Johan Cruyff Netherlands0.87%14Alfredo Di Stéfano Argentina0.68%15Michel Platini France0.58%16Bobby Charlton England0.39%17Ferenc Puskás Hungary0.37%18Lothar Matthäus Germany0.37%19Lev Yashin Soviet Union0.36%20George Best Northern Ireland0.32%now tell me maradona is not the GOAT bruh he won by 35%

  2. Messi is THE DEFINITION OF FOOTBALL. His ABILITY AND AGILITY SURPASSES all. His ACCURACY is beyond understanding It would be a big mistake for the scientific world not to clone him. In fact He is a PlayStation.

  3. People forget past stars like Romario, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho.
    I think Messi is great. Once you compare him with past Barcelona big guns, the perspective is in order

  4. We are talking about the past decade is without question that Cristiano should be the winner. Why no mention of his European Cup victory? Why no mention of him being far more consistent than Messi during the past 10 years? Why no mention of him leaving different clubs and succeeding at new clubs? Why don’t mention of winning three Champions leagues back to back? Why no mention of the multivariate data sets which would indicate who the more important player is in the big games?

    The fact of the matter is, being the best individual player needs to also have an element of victory alongside it. It turns out when you do a multivariate analysis that Ronaldo ends up ranking higher than Messi relative to success. This is not just exclusive to the international stage. While Messi squanders and becomes a shadow of himself during the biggest games and the biggest competitions Ronaldo ends up thriving.

    We can see this in all of The Knockout stages and finals of the Champions League when we compare the stats and performance outputs. We can see this in games where either sides team is losing by a goal or two… Messi virtually all of the time becomes a shadow of himself in the big competitions when this happens whereas Ronaldo always seems to stand up and be counted. Messi was eliminated from the Champions League for three or four years straight from humiliating losses and it was as though he wasn’t even on the field… But when Ronaldo’s team is down by one goal or two goals or sometimes even three goals, he has always ended up rising to the occasion and turning the match upside down or at the very least scoring goals to uplift his team and actually fight the fight that’s required.

    The data sets also indicate that when in these situations regardless of how big the competition is, Ronaldo ends up ranking much higher than Messi. Ronaldo seems to score or assist when his team is losing far more than Messi does when his team is losing. And this is actually an extremely relevant stat when we think about stat padding. For example; yes it might be nice that Messi has scored 10 goals against a specific side in la Liga in 5 games, but what was the final scores in those 5 games? If it happened to be landslide victories it’s less valuable. It also turns out Messi doesn’t score game winning goals nearly as often as Ronaldo.

    So it’s nice to make the claim that Messi has been the better player in the past decade but we also need to detail why it is that this is being said to be the case. How did this outcome come to be? Is it just a popular vote? Or is it actually backed by statistical realities? It definitely does not seem to be the latter.

    1. Forget Mr penaldo no nothing , he is not gud and playing for farmers league doesn’t mean anything especially Juventus . Since he arrived in Italy he have never won golden shoe but instead he take all penalties , so forget about penaldo he is nowhere near Messi infact he should be greatful to compared to Messi

  5. For indeed Messi is the best all round, football excitement revolves around him . Great goals , dribbling , passing . Sorry if Yu argue . Messi is greastest player this earth shall see in million years

  6. wow I’m much more impressed @ Becker how detailed you are regarding the two great. my opinion Is SIMple and straightforward . Messi dominates in games while Cr7 pops up with goals. ask none football fan who is my appealing to what and the name Messi rings aloud. I’m sure everyone has maximum respect for what Cr7 has achieved .

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