CRISTIANO RONALDO - LIONEL MESSI : THE TABLE

• Feb 5, 2024
• History Statistics

Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi: goals’ rivalry by age

Today is Cristiano Ronaldo's 39th birthday. In this regard, we publish a table of his scoring performance by year of life, that is, by the annual intervals between the dates of his birth (5 February).
Each such segment is marked with an age at the time of its end. For example, in the first such segment of his football career, between the ages of 17 and 18 years (that is, from 6 February 2002 to 5 February 2003), Cristiano scored 5 goals; in the second segment, between 18 and 19 years, 1 goal, and so on. 
In parallel, we present the same statistics for Lionel Messi, who also began his career at the age of 17.
For both superstars, the total goals accumulated by each birthday are also shown (for Messi - by June 24 of each year).
Finally, the right column gives the difference between the number of goals amassed by each of them at another birthday: Messi goals minus Cristiano Ronaldo goals.
For example, CR7 accumulated 23 goals by the day he turned 20, and Messi accumulated 30 goals by the same day of his life. Therefore, the difference in this column is 7 (in favor of Messi).
If you look at this column, you will notice that Messi was only behind in the very first year of career (by 4 goals). After all other annual periods, he was ahead.
At the same time, the goal difference by which Messi was ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo formed a strictly increasing sequence until the age of 26 (when it reached its peak, 135 goals).
After 26 years, the sequence changes to almost strictly decreasing (with one tiny deviation at the level of 31-32 years).
As of now (at the age of 36, which is how many full years Messi has now), Messi's advantage has decreased to 45 goals and will probably suffer next setback at the forthcoming mark of 37 years).

	CRISTIANO	RONALDO	vs    MESSI	COMPARISON	BY AGE
Age	Cristiano	Ronaldo Goals	Messi	Goals	Difference
	Between DB	Cumulative	Between DB	Cumulative	Messi - CR
18	5	5	1	1	-4
19	1	6	10	11	5
20	17	23	19	30	7
21	13	36	21	51	15
22	26	62	41	92	30
23	40	102	48	140	38
24	30	132	57	197	65
25	28	160	82	279	119
26	53	213	69	348	135
27	59	272	46	394	122
28	67	339	64	458	119
29	64	403	50	508	105
30	60	463	57	565	102
31	58	521	51	616	95
32	54	575	55	671	96
33	53	628	28	699	71
34	49	677	46	745	68
35	45	722	24	769	47
36	40	762	38	807	45
37	41	803	14+	821+	18+
38	17	820
39	53	873

between DB = between the dates of his birth