Comparing Lionel Messi’s stats with Cristiano Ronaldo’s over the last 10 years
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are undoubtedly the two best players of their generation, but how do their stats compare over the last 10 years?
For the purposes of this article, we’ve gone back to the end of May 2015 and have crunched their stats up until today, in May 2025.
Going back 10 years, Messi had just won his fourth Champions League title as Barcelona beat Juventus in the 2015 final.
The Argentine forward spent another six years with Barcelona after that, until he left the club in 2021 and joined PSG on a free transfer.
During his time in Paris, he won back-to-back league titles and also experienced his best years at international level during that period.
For many, Messi’s career peaked when he won the 2022 World Cup, guiding Argentina to victory in Qatar at the ripe old age of 35.
Since then, he’s been doing the business in MLS for Inter Miami where he’s scored 47 goals and provided 21 assists in 58 appearances.
Along with winning numerous trophies, Messi has also won four Ballon d’Or awards since 2015, which is some going.
In comparison, Ronaldo was still playing for Real Madrid in 2015 and back then, he’d only won two Champions League titles.
That quickly changed as he won three consecutive UCL trophies during his last three years at Real Madrid and he also won two Ballon d’Or awards during that period.
After leaving Madrid in 2018, Ronaldo maintained his excellent scoring rate with Juventus, where he scored 101 goals in 134 appearances for the Italian giants.
While his return to Manchester United perhaps didn’t quite go to plan, he still scored an impressive 27 goals during the season and a half that he had back in England.
Since then, he’s been playing in Saudi Arabia and has been scoring at a freakishly good rate for Al-Nassr, where he’s got 99 goals in 111 appearances.
Over the last 10 years, Ronaldo has scored 40 more goals than Messi, but Messi has produced 106 more assists than Ronaldo.
It’s also worth pointing out that Ronaldo has taken considerably more penalties than Messi during that period, having scored almost double the amount since 2015.
In total, Messi has produced 607 goal contributions for club and country over the last 10 years, whereas Ronaldo has produced 541 during that same period.
It goes without saying that both players have produced unbelievably good numbers, but Messi does have the slight edge in most stats.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of how their stats compare over the last 10 years, for both club and country.
Messi stats since May 31st 2015:
Games: 525
Goals: 408
Assists: 199 ⭐
Goal contributions: 607 ⭐
Penalties: 52
Free-kicks: 48 ⭐
Minutes per goal: 109.0
Minutes per non-penalty goal: 124.9 ⭐
Minutes per goal or assist: 73.3 ⭐
Ronaldo stats since May 31st 2015:
Games: 537 ⭐
Goals: 448 ⭐
Assists: 93
Goal contributions: 541
Penalties: 98 ⭐
Free-kicks: 19
Minutes per goal: 102.3 ⭐
Minutes per non-penalty goal: 130.9
Minutes per goal or assist: 84.7
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