3 Reasons why Lionel Messi will finish his career with more goals than Cristiano Ronaldo
When Cristiano Ronaldo converted a 72nd-minute penalty against Ukraine on Monday, he touched a rare milestone. Portugal failed to win the game, going down 1-2 at the end of the 90 minutes, but Ronaldo ended the game with 700 career goals.
He became only the 6th footballer in the history of the game to achieve the feat, which shows the rarity and significance of the achievement.
The Portuguese scored his 95th goal for his nation against Ukraine, which means that he is closing in on Iranian legend Ali Daei who is the current record international goal scorer with 109 goals. Ronaldo has so far scored 605 club goals, which includes 5 goals scored for Sporting CP, 118 for Manchester United, 450 for Real Madrid and 32 for Juventus.
Ronaldo will now have his eyes set on Josef Bican’s record of 805 career goals, and will be looking to finish his career as the highest goal scorer in the history of the beautiful game. However, he might be faced with a small problem en route – Lionel Messi.
The Argentinean is currently on 672 career goals, but could very well overtake the Portuguese in a few years' time. Here are three reasons why Messi will finish his career with more goals than Ronaldo:
#3 Age
Messi is two years younger than Ronaldo. The Portuguese first burst onto the scene in the 2002-03 season while playing for Sporting CP, when he finished the season with five goals from 31 appearances as an 18-year-old. The Argentinean, on the other hand, made his senior debut for Barcelona two years later, in the 2004-05 season, making nine appearances and scoring one goal.
While neither of them has shown any signs of slowing down, it is expected that Messi will be active longer than Ronaldo, thanks to his age. And that will most definitely give the Barcelona skipper ample time to catch his rival and even surpass him in the goal-scoring department.
Messi will theoretically be playing for at least a couple of seasons more than Ronaldo, and that is likely to ensure that the Argentinean finishes his career with more goals than the Portuguese.