Who is better, Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi? The two greatest living soccer players not only compete in the same league but for rival squads.
As Latinos Post compares both players, let us look at what the two superstars accomplished during the 16th week of La Liga and attempt to determine who had the better performance.
Messi: La Pulga continued his dominance of world soccer with another two goal performance as FC Barcelona dominated Atletico Madrid 4-1 and took a comfortable lead in the Spanish league. Earlier in the week he added another brace against Cordoba in the Copa Del Rey. Messi now has 90 goals on the year and could potentially add a few more before 2012 comes to a close.
Ronaldo: Real Madrid had a tough week despite their star player scoring a couple of goals. The team lost in the Spanish Copa del Rey to lowly Deportivo La Coruna and then lost some ground in the standings when they drew 2-2 against 19th place Espanyol. Ronaldo scored big goals in each match, but was unable to help his team win in either case.
Stats through Week 16
Messi: 25 goals, 5 assists (5 goals, 2 assists in UCL; 2 goals in Spanish Super Cup; 2 goals in the Copa Del Rey)
Ronaldo: 14 goals, 3 assists (6 goals in UCL, 1 assist; 2 goals in Spanish Super Cup; 1 goal in the Copa Del Rey)
Edge: Four goals and two wins against two goals and no wins. The stats are pretty clear. With 25 goals to Ronaldo's 14, Messi is making his greatest rival look pedestrian with every passing game and at this point it looks like Messi is the clearcut winner of the Ballon d'Or. Messi easily takes this week.
Messi 10-6.
During week 5, both players earned a point for equally strong weeks. During week 10, neither earned a point for forgettable weeks.
Read about past Weeks
Week 1, 2, 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15