Lionel Messi and Cristiano have fought together on the pitch for the best time of the past 15 years.

Considered by many to be two of the greatest players in the history of world football, the duo boasts truly astounding statistics.

With a goal against Lyon in the 8th round of Ligue 1 2022/23, Messi has reached the milestone of 672 career goals (Infogol), excluding goals from the 11-meter mark. The Paris Saint-Germain striker took only 980 games to score the number of goals mentioned above.

Meanwhile, Ronaldo currently owns 671 goals (excluding penalties) in 1,130 appearances. With 672 goals, Messi also surpasses Pele, who also has 671 goals (excluding penalties) in his career.

If you include goals from the penalty spot, Messi has 103 more goals to reach 775 goals. Ronaldo has scored 174 goals from penalties in his career for a total of 845 goals so far.

But it’s not just their field duels that catch the eye these days. Messi and Ronaldo are also rivals when it comes to their off-field stats.

Although he is proving quite lackluster at Man United, Ronaldo still has a great influence on cyberspace. Among the players expected to attend the 2022 World Cup, no one can match Ronaldo in terms of the number of followers on Instagram.

According to Nielsen Sports, Ronaldo currently has 480 million followers on Instagram. Ranked in the next positions in the top 5 most interested players on Instagram are Lionel Messi (360 million followers), Neymar (178 million), Kylian Mbappe (72.5 million) and Vinicius (23 million). .