There is a huge difference between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi after what they have achieved in 2024. With Ronaldo, the Al Nassr striker scored his 50th goal for club and country in 2024. With this, Ronaldo has now scored 916 goals in his career, just 84 goals away from the 1,000 mark. Ronaldo is currently second in the 2024/25 Saudi Pro League scoring list with 11 goals in 9 matches. He is behind Aleksandar Mitrovic, who has scored 12 goals in 12 matches for Al Hilal. However, despite his great personal statistics, Ronaldo did not win any titles in 2024.
Meanwhile, Messi finished 2024 much better than Cristiano Ronaldo, although he did not achieve his ultimate goal with Inter Miami, which was the MLS championship title. However, Messi and his teammates at Inter Miami won the Supporters’ Shield, a title awarded to the team with the best performance in the MLS group stage.
That’s why Inter Miami won the hosting spot for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. 2024 will also see Messi win the Copa America title with the Argentina national team.
Along with that, the latest statistics from the European Football Federation (UEFA) show that Ronaldo is still far from reaching a record belonging to Messi. Specifically, Messi leads the top scorer rankings in the top domestic championships of the Old Continent with 496 goals. Meanwhile, Ronaldo is in second place with 495 goals, when he was still playing for Sporting Lisbon, MU, Real, Juventus. Thus, the gap between Ronaldo and Messi is only one goal. Ronaldo will only be able to break that record if he returns to Europe to play. However, that is difficult to turn into reality when Ronaldo is 39 years old this year. In third place, Robert Lewandowski appears with 366 goals, followed by Gerd Muller, who has 365 goals and occupies fourth place.
Jimmy Greaves, one of the greatest strikers in English football history, is in fifth place with 357 goals, while Steve Bloomer is in sixth place with 314 goals. Dixie Dean, an English legend, is in seventh place with 310 goals, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic is in eighth place with 302 goals. Delio Onnis is in ninth place with 299 goals, while Gordon Hodgson is at the bottom of the top 10 with 288 goals.
