1. A Career in Numbers...
Cristiano Ronaldo: Age: 27
In his adult professional career Ronaldo has played for three clubs in three different countries, Sporting CP, Manchester United and Real Madrid respectively. In that time he has played 467 times scoring 269 goals. The most impressive of these totals has been his time at Real Madrid where he has scored 146 goals in just 144 performances. He has 11 club honours which include the Champions League and FIFA World Club Cup whilst also winning the League in two different countries. He has 63 individual playing honours including several Premier League Player of the months, inclusion in European and World teams of the year, a Ballon Dor, a FIFA World Player of the Year and a FIFPro World Player of the year. In summer 2009 he transferred from Manchester United to Real Madrid for £80 million, making him the most expensive footballer of all time.
Lionel Messi: Age: 25
In his adult professional career Messi has played just for Barcelona and has played 329 times scoring 253 times, in the 2011-2012 season he scored 73 goals, becoming the highest individual season goal-scorer in the history of football whilst also surpassing Cesar Rodriguez as Barcelonas highest individual goal scorer in official competitions. He has 19 club honours which include 3 Champions League titles and two FIFA Club World Cup trophies. He has 77 individual honours including 3 Ballon dOrs and 5 inclusions in the FIFA/FIFPro World 11s. He has 14 World records and 5 Barcelona records all completed before his 25th birthday.
Talking Points: Cristiano Ronaldo has scored more goals but with another 100 extra appearances than Messi who has been attributed on the World Stage a dozen times more than Ronaldo whilst being two years younger. It is however worth mentioning that Ronaldo has played the majority of his career in the Barclays Premier League which, under the assurance of Rupert Murdoch employed Sky pundits, is a much more competitive division than the duopoly featured in La Liga. Indeed, Ronaldo has averaged more than a goal a game for Real Madrid which outstretches Messis overall goal scoring record for Barcelona. Also Messi has played for Barcelona, widely regarded as one of the best teams in the world and for the last 4 years, the greatest team since the dawn of humanity (the Barcelona PR team told us this fact) Also it can be argued that Ronaldo has spent the physical prime of his career (argued to be between 25 and 29) in Spain whereas Messi is yet to hit his.
Who wins on numbers:A tie, Ronaldos got less individual accolades but hasnt had the advantage of playing for the greatest team in all of humanity for the last few years and in the same division, Ronaldos goal scoring record outdoes Messis making it difficult to choose.