Comparing Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s career-best seasons

It will take some getting used to but it appears that after a decade of dominance, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are no longer the two best players in world football.

The two players broke all kinds of goalscoring records at Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively, two great rivals where the two icons enjoyed the peak years of their careers.

We're now midway through the 2021-22 campaign and Messi has unthinkably scored just one league goal for PSG, while Ronaldo isn't as prolific as he once was after returning to a struggling Manchester United.

So it's time to accept that the two modern greats are extremely unlikely to ever reach the heights that they were once at, by far and away the two best players in the world for an unthinkably long amount of time.

But who was best while at the peak of their powers? We've decided to take a look back and compare the two in terms of their records from their best individual years – 2011-12 for Messi, and 2014-15 for Ronaldo.

Interestingly, despite the two players racking obscene numbers of goals and assists, they each had much more collective success in other campaigns.

Messi was astonishing in 2011-12, but Barcelona finished runners-up to Ronaldo's Real Madrid that year, while he missed a costly penalty in their Champions League semi-final defeat to Chelsea.

Meanwhile, while Ronaldo was enjoying his best individual season, Messi was winning the treble alongside Luis Suarez and Neymar for Luis Enrique's all-conquering Barcelona.

Here's how the two icons stack up against one another while they were at their very best.

Lionel Messi (2011-12)

Games: 60

Starts: 56

Sub appearances: 4

Goals: 73

Assists: 29

Penalties scored: 14

Hat-tricks: 10

Free-kicks: 3

Minutes per goal: 71.5

Minutes per non-penalty goal: 88.4

Minutes per goal or assist: 51.2

Trophies Won: Supercopa de Espana, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, Copa del Rey

Cristiano Ronaldo (2014-15)

Games: 54

Starts: 52

Sub appearances: 2

Goals: 61

Assists: 21

Penalties scored: 13

Hat-tricks: 8

Free-kicks: 2

Minutes per goal: 76.1

Minutes per non-penalty goal: 96.6

Minutes per goal or assist: 56.6

Trophies Won: UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup