Lionel Messi v Cristiano Ronaldo: Comparing their heatmaps in their prime | OneFootball

During the peak of their powers, nobody even came close to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

And now, two videos have compared where they had the most effect in their prime years.

Messi’s numbers for Barcelona are truly staggering, with the Argentinian racking up 627 goals while playing in Spain for 17 years.

Ronaldo was just as dangerous, netting 421 times for Real Madrid in all competitions, and a further 101 times while at Juventus.

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Ronaldo was simply lethal from the left

And a new video has shown just how predatory Ronaldo was cutting in from the left wing.

The forward’s first few years with Real were predominantly spent on the left, with him also having influence in both the middle and the right of the pitch at points.

The 2011/12 season is the first one to note from the footage though, as that was the first year that he scored more than 50 goals.

Ronaldo found the net 56 times that year, and although the video shows that he mostly dominated on the left flank, that was the first season where he began to spend more time in the penalty area.

The two following seasons were still just as impressive, with Ronaldo scoring 46 and 48 goals respectively, but he would set his highest tally in 2015.

For all three of those seasons, he would become more present inside the penalty area.

And that was certainly the case for his best goalscoring season ever where the Portugal captain scored 61 times for Madrid.

Ronaldo did become more of a focal point after that, but he still played most of his football off the left wing. That was especially the case when he moved to Italy and joined Juventus.

And even despite that, he still scored no less than 28 goals over those 11 seasons. Truly outstanding numbers.

Messi’s outrageous numbers from the right

Like his rival, Messi also had an incredible goalscoring record. And based on his heatmap, he did it all without playing as a centre-forward.

His video starts in 2007, where the Argentinian featured mainly as a right-winger.

He recorded his lowest goals tally that season, with 16 contributions in all competitions.

But even playing predominantly on the right the following year, Messi still scored 32 goals. And when he shifted inside more, his numbers blew up.

For the 2011/12 season, the forward hit 64 goals in all competitions, with Messi benefitting from getting into dangerous central positions.

But he barely features inside the box and actually dropped deeper in 2012 – the year when he scored 91 goals.

With the arrival of Luis Suarez though, Messi returned to the right wing.

But he continued to cut in and contribute, scoring no less than 40 goals a season in the years that he played alongside the Uruguayan and Neymar.

As he got older, Messi shifted inside to a more central position yet again, but he was still just as lethal in the 2018/19 season when he scored 51 goals.

Most impressively of all though, he hits all these numbers without bringing up a red dot on the heatmap inside the penalty area.

Both videos just show how impressive Messi and Ronaldo’s records are, especially as neither were out-and-out centre-forwards for their whole career.