Lionel Messi celebrated his 1,000th career match in style on Friday night.
The 2022 World Cup round of 16 clash between Argentina and Australia marked the 1,000th time that Messi had ever taken to the pitch for either club and country, barring friendlies, across his illustrious career.
Messi played a staggering 778 times for Barcelona, boasts 169 caps for Argentina and has featured in 53 games for Paris Saint-Germain, bring his total to the magical 1,000 overall.
And the 35-year-old was keen to celebrate the occasion in style, scoring in a World Cup knockout game for the first time in his career as Argentina progressed to the quarter-finals courtesy of a 2-1 win over Australia.
How do Messi and Ronaldo compare after 1,000 games?
Now, as with any landmark in Messi’s career, it’s inevitable that the comparisons to Cristiano Ronaldo are never far away.
It is, of course, no secret that Ronaldo is two years older than Messi and has, therefore, been there, done that and got the t-shirt when it comes to celebrating 1,000 matches in the big time.
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And the interesting problem that comes with the difference in age between Ronaldo and Messi is that you have to do some mathematical gymnastics to make the comparisons a fair playing field.
Nevertheless, when it was confirmed that Messi had reached the 1,000-game mark, that provided us with the perfect opportunity to check in with that facet of comparisons between the two.
In other words, how do Messi’s statistics now that he’s made 1,000 appearance contrast with those of Ronaldo when he reached the same landmark?
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s exactly what we sought to find out by heading over to MessivsRonaldo.app and crunching numbers to see who had the better record from the first 1,000 outings of their professional career.
It was, therefore, a straight shootout between the Messi of right here, right now and the Ronaldo who had just celebrated scoring against SPAL for Juventus back in February 2020.
Messi vs Ronaldo: Who had better stats after 1,000 games?
The winner? Well, we’ll let you decide, but we can certainly present the numbers to help you make your choice, so be sure to check out some of the key Messi vs Ronaldo stats when they both reached 1,000 games down below:
Goals: Messi 789-725 Ronaldo
Assists: Messi 348-216 Ronaldo
Hat-tricks: Messi 56-56 Ronaldo
Non-penalty goals: Messi 684-602 Ronaldo
Trophies: Messi 38-29 Ronaldo
Ballon d’Or titles: Messi 7-5 Ronaldo
European Golden Shoes: Messi 6-4 Ronaldo
International goals: Ronaldo 99-94 Messi
Messi vs Ronaldo: Who is the winner?
Look, sorry Cristiano, but it’s pretty clearcut.
After 1,000 games, Ronaldo had fewer goals, assists, non-penalty goals, trophies Ballon d’Or titles and European Golden Shoes than Messi does right now having just reached the same feat.
Messi is also level on hat-tricks and despite Ronaldo being universally accepted as the male GOAT of international football, the Portuguese only finds himself with a five-goal lead at the 1,000-game mark.
Now, of course, the caveat to all this is that Messi still has to keep his foot on the accelerator and push on to play at the top level into the second half of his thirties just as Ronaldo has done.
However, even when you don’t level out the playing field and you do allow Ronaldo to enjoy his advantage of more years and more games, Messi still comes out on top 684 vs 673 for non-penalty goals despite having played 143 fewer matches.
Goodness. Best not tell Piers Morgan.