Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar: The top performer of every Champions League season since 2009

Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo: it’s football’s inescapable debate.

A tweet about, say, Chelsea‘s transfer business could attract thousands of comments and you could still bet with absolute certainty that at least one of them, for no discernible reason, would randomly be discussing the GOAT debate.

In sporting terms, it’s a conversation as hold as the hills with Ronaldo and Messi‘s dominance marking the first time that football has seen two icons of their quality sharing the same generation.

While, yes, the back and forth can become tedious every now and again, there’s always a level of fun that comes with discussing who’s the better finisher, who’s better in finals and who truly is the GOAT.

And that fun emanates from the fact that there is seldom, if ever, a clearcut answer such is the remarkable tit for tat carried about by each player’s utter mastery of the beautiful game.

However, one area of the debate where things become a little clearer is the Champions League because even many ardent Messi fans would readily concede that they think Ronaldo has the upper hand.

We are, after all, talking about the competition’s all-time top goalscorer and assist provider with five trophies spread across two clubs, so it’s fair to say that the ‘Mr. Champions League’ moniker is more than justified.

But before we get ahead of ourselves too much as Europe’s premier competition awaits its 2022/23 return, we’ve been sifting through some interesting statistics that shine a different light on things.

We’re not here to dispute that Ronaldo is the Champions League GOAT, but we are here to show that Messi’s European output shouldn’t be so casually dismissed because of Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona’s woes.

Enter WhoScored. One of