The 25 most prolific years by an individual player in the 21st century

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are arguably the two greatest footballers in history.

What the superstar pair have achieved in the sport over the past 15 years or so is quite remarkable and may never be equalled by another player in the future.

Messi and Ronaldo have scored and assisted goals for fun, with the latter currently the leading scorer in men’s professional football with 810 to his name.

The pair have broken so many records it’s almost laughable, so when we decided to work out the 25 most prolific years by an individual player in the 21st century, we expected them to feature heavily.

And that certainly turned out to be the case, with Messi and Ronaldo taking up 15 of the 25 spots on the list – which is just ridiculous really.

So, let’s take a look at the 25 individual years in full, with all the goal and assist numbers sourced from Transfermarkt.

Edinson Cavani, 2017 | 60 goal contributions (50 goals, 10 assists)

Dusan Tadic, 2019 | 61 goal contributions (30 goals, 31 assists)

Neymar, 2015 | 62 goal contributions (41 goals, 21 assists)

Luis Suarez, 2009 | 62 goal contributions (42 goals, 20 assists)

Lionel Messi, 2019 | 62 goal contributions (45 goals, 17 assists)

Robert Lewandowski, 2021 | 62 goal contributions (56 goals, 6 assists)

Luis Suarez, 2015 | 65 goal contributions (42 goals, 23 assists)

Kylian Mbappe, 2021 | 65 goal contributions (43 goals, 22 assists)

Cristiano Ronaldo, 2010 | 64 goal contributions (45 goals, 19 assists)

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 2016 | 66 goal contributions (50 goals, 16 assists)

Lionel Messi, 2017 | 69 goal contributions (50 goals, 19 assists)

Cristiano Ronaldo, 2012 | 69 goal contributions (58 goals, 11 assists)

Lionel Messi, 2015 | 71 goal contributions (45 goals, 26 assists)

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