.@Danko Ronaldo has 40 champions league assists in 154 games:0.26 assists per game Messi has 26 assists in 126 games:0.21 assists per game It is worth mentioning with ronaldo a lot of his assists have come in ko rounds Neymar has “statpadded “ assists in the groupstage(at least 6 of his 8 assists in the 16/17 cl campaign were in the groupstage with at least 3-4 vs Celtic) I have previously argued in favour of Neymar and it goes without saying he is a generational talent and as good a playmaker as prime rivaldo ever was(there is even a solid argument Neymar is also a more prolific and consistent chance creator than prime Ronaldinho even though he doesn’t possess the same ingenuity as the latter did) https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/has-neymar-jr-surpassed-luis-figo.2087453/ Playmaking from arguably his peak level season 2015/16
I'll go with the official UEFA stats. Total CL: Ronaldo has 37 assists in 154 matches (0.24). Messi has 29 assists in 126 matches (0.23). Neymar has 22 assists in 48 matches (0.46). His assist rate is staggering. Obviously assists don't correlate exactly with vision and playmaking ability where Messi > Neymar > Ronaldo but it does show how involved Neymar is. The 0.46 rate is simply staggering. CL in the KO rounds: Ronaldo has 12 assists in 75 matches (0.16). Messi has 10 assists in 60 matches (0.17). Neymar has 4 assists in 20 matches (0.20). He obviously has fewer in the knockout stage but Neymar hasn't played very many matches in the KO stages. He's still ahead in assist rate.
The extra assists I recorded for ronaldo are easily proven (and I have actually gone to effort of doing so on this thread) Regardless though Neymar is an extremely productive and talented player and 0.46 assists per game is indeed a staggering statistic. We will see if he can maintain that playing 100+ champions league games He is still light years away from the big two.ronaldo and Messi have averaged at least 1 goal involvement over 126-154 matches That should be impossible (considering the level of opposition)
Maybe Messi and Neymar also have extra ones if you go through it like that. I prefer to use the official data. It's the most credible source IMO although everyone knows assists are subjective and not recorded systematically. Neymar lacks longevity as you said. But he is currently on pace for 1+ goal involvement after 48 games.
Updated to 2018/19 season, includes all matches from group stage on: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19zZ7Ab2AhwPIInl8XxcWDu1hI3qv82bg/view?usp=sharing
Zidane had the following in terms of assists as per my reckoning in the 02/03 CL - 1 vs Milan 2 vs Dortmund 2 vs Manchester United I think you have awarded him only 3 for that season in the CL. Also, depending on whether you consider the 2nd group stage as knockout or not, Zidane's CL KO assist numbers would change considering that his assists against Milan and Dortmund were in that stage of the competition. If for some seasons you are going by UEFA numbers btw (which seem to miss out on quite a few assists for some reason), they have awarded him 2 in the 04/05 season IIRC.
I'll copy and paste the disclaimer I wrote on post #22: The assist totals after and including 01/02 season I took from UEFA.com, which does not explicitly follow the assist rules I set (such as counting create own goals, rebounds, create PK, etc.). If it was me doing all the work by hand, these assists you have tolde me all would be counted. But I didn't have time to do that for the 2001-02 to 2018-19 seasons. UEFA.com only has assist stats after and including the 01/02 season. The 91/92 to 00/01 seasons I did by hand. I didn't consider the second group stage matches in 99/00 to 02/03 seasons as "knockout" matches, since they are not ties that would eliminate a team if they failed to win that. If you look at the individual seasons sheets in the Excel, you can see how I broke down every goal and assist into very specific types.