Will Lionel Messi catch Cristiano Ronaldo for total career goals before they retire?
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are winding down their remarkable careers in football at Inter Miami and Al Nassr respectively.
The two superstars each have genuine claims to be the greatest goalscorer in the history of football, but how do their overall numbers compare, and which of them is likelier to retire on a higher tally of goals?
R0naldo has been outspoken in his ambitions to be the first footballer to ever officially reach a total of 1000 career goals.
“Soon I will do 900 and, after, I will beat 1,000,” the Portugal captain recently told Rio Ferdinand in an appearance on his YouTube channel.
“I want to reach 1,000 goals. If I don’t have injuries, this, for me, is the most important. I want that.
“It’s the best marker I can have in football. There will be one difference: all of my goals have videos, so I can prove that.”
Messi, meanwhile, appears a bit more relaxed about records and statistics, with different things on his mind as he savours the twilight years of his playing career.
“I’m living it like I lived it in the last Copa America, in the last World Cup. These are the last battles and I’m enjoying them to the maximum,” the Argentinian said during the last Copa America.
READ NEXT: 6 football superstars Cristiano Ronaldo has insulted over the years: Messi, Pele…
TRY A QUIZ: The Ultimate Lionel Messi Quiz: 30 tough questions to test your knowledge of the GOAT
Which of the two era-defining icons will end up on more career goals? We’ve broken down the factors on which of them is likelier to retire on more goals
– Ronaldo has a head start on Messi. He’s currently on 899 goals for club and country, while Messi is 61 behind on 838.
– Messi is about two and a half years younger than Ronaldo, so he potentially has time on his side to make up the difference. Ronaldo turns 40 next February, while Messi won’t hit that milestone until the summer of 2027 – a whole year after the next World Cup.
– Ronaldo’s existing contract with Al Nassr is set to expire at the end of this season, although he has hinted that a renewal could be in the works. For Messi, he is under contract at Inter Miami until December 2025.
– Since moving to Saudi Arabia, Ronaldo has scored a goal every 96 minutes on average, while Messi has been scoring at a slightly superior rate in the United States, averaging a goal every 92.8 minutes.
– If Messi continues to score at his current rate, it would take him 63 matches to catch up to Ronaldo’s current tally of 899 goals. However, by the time Messi reaches that milestone, Ronaldo will have probably pulled further ahead.
– By the time Messi reaches 899 goals, Ronaldo is projected to have scored 958 goals (if he maintains his current scoring rate and plays the exact same number of matches as Messi).
– One of the most impressive things about Ronaldo is how he has maintained his fitness in his late thirties. In 2023-24, he made a whopping 51 appearances for Al Nassr – the most amount of games he had played in a season since 2014–15. On the other hand, Messi has started to pick up injuries more frequently in his later years. Since joining Inter Miami, he’s missed 24 games through injury.
– Ultimately, the biggest factor will be when they each decide to retire. Ronaldo has stated that he still has the desire to play for a few more years, whereas Messi has been a bit more tight-lipped over his future.
– While Messi at Inter Miami is scoring at a marginally better rate than Ronaldo is at Al Nassr, the volume of games that CR7 is playing will likely keep him ahead of Messi’s goal tally for the foreseeable future.