Cristiano Ronaldo ~ Your Favorite Player Is So Much Better!! Thread

While I agree that there is a luck factor in football, I believe that the recurrence of something cannot be just luck. Ronaldo has consistently scored difficult goals throughout his career and he proves to be an ATG in off the ball movement. There's no data for off ball movement but look at all his moves before his easy tap-ins and you'll see what I mean.

xG is misleading without context. We know Ronaldo has more xG and less goals scored than Messi in domestic league since 14/15 (9,47 more xG but 36 less goals scored). You would look at this stat and say Messi is more efficient without considering the context. Ronaldo's off the ball movement often generates high quality chances for him and that increases his xG numbers significantly in comparison to Messi. Although he doesn't have significantly more shots than Messi (has 17 more on that timeframe) let's say that 90% of his xG came from 50% of his shots and the rest were the sum of his difficult shots accumulated while Messi's xG came from 90% of his shots. We really don't have how to know it. What I know just by watching both player play for the last 15 years is that Messi isn't in the box on crowded corners, he doesn't shoots beyond 25 yards on set pieces, he doesn't shoot from distance or off angle with his weak foot, he doesn't attempt super long range shots and he definitely doesn't get on the end of crosses to attempt low percentage headers. Ronaldo does all that.

Come on man, Messi played most of his career in a well oiled machine playing from muscle memory where his teammates have a strict template that they stick to at all costs which is why the build-ups and attacking moves were mirror images of one another week in week out. We've all seen Messi replicate the same plays and attacking moves be it dribbling, shooting or passing thousand of times. I've laid out the constant 1-2's, the dribbles along the box shooting near or far post, the diagonal pass, the trailing run in the box, etc...

I agree that Ronaldo and the teams he played for have patterns but his counter attacking teams were much more chaotic and less pass oriented with individuals who attempted more singular attacks which produced a certain unorganized feel to their approach. When do you see Ronaldo get the ball with all the same movements and player patterns developing? He doesn't get to hit rewind and try again 10 times a game. That required him to be more versatile and spontaneous in nature which he is accostumed to. We see Ronaldo back heeling to his striker on the left flank, then scoring a diving header, then making a box to box sprint, then shooting from the right flank with his left foot, etc... It's day and night. This is why Ronaldo is so versatile, he must adapt to whatever opportunity arises organically.

 

🔎 Cristiano Ronaldo marcou 3 gols de fora da área em 45 minutos.

⚽️ Gol de falta aos 11'
⚽️ Gol de falta aos 21'
⚽️ Gol de cobertura aos 42'

Nenhum jogador da nossa base de dados marcou mais do que 3 gols em chutes de fora da área em uma partida completa.

🇵🇹🎯 pic.twitter.com/e5CVh2PAzW

— Sofascore Brazil (@SofascoreBR) April 2, 2024

 

UCL Knockout Goals (2007-2020):

🇵🇹 Cristiano Ronaldo: 67
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Liverpool: 66
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Chelsea: 57
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Arsenal: 51
🇮🇹 Juventus: 44
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Manchester City: 44

Competing with clubs 😭🐐 pic.twitter.com/h7gk0m5Y3h

— CristianoXtra (@CristianoXtra_) July 13, 2024

 

"If you remove the goals..."

If we remove the goals….

pic.twitter.com/QokC1rHbmE https://t.co/Fj1UTm0x9o

— W (@_common_W_) July 25, 2024

@carlito86 @SayWhatIWant and this is his Juve days. The first play is peak Maradona's level

 

Part 2: pic.twitter.com/t1jEOqj6Sn

— BERSERK (@RetroCristiano) May 14, 2020

 

If I had to cram everything at juventus into a 2~ minute video then alot of those side way passes would not even make the cut

they’d get replaced with these















Another trivela here





Dribbling past multiple players and creating a big chance here via a cross(too long for me to covert into gif form)

05:47
Was 34 years old here

 

And there are those who say that Ronaldo is a "very good player" but he is not a "genius" lol