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Cristiano Ronaldo has been awarded his fourth Ballon d’Or. He is the only active player with 4 golden balls, only surpassed by Leo Messi with 5.
- No player other than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo has won the Ballon d’Or since 2008.
- Since 2007, Leo Messi has won 5 Golden Balls, 4 Silver Balls and 1 Bronze Ball.
- Since 2007, Cristiano Ronaldo has won 4 Golden Balls and 5 Silver Balls.
- Kaka was the last player to win the Golden Ball before the Messi-Ronaldo era started.
In addition, he has also been awarded the “The Best FIFA”, which replaces the “FIFA World Player”.
In this section we compare the individual achievements of Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, to see which one was most successful throughout his career.
In the table we can see that Messi surpasses Cristiano in Golden Balls, World Cup Golden Ball and Young Player of the Year awards (Golden Boy / Bravo).
Cristiano Ronaldo has more Champions League top scorer awards.
Both have won a FIFA World Player and three Onze d’Or.
Cristiano Ronaldo has won the only “The Best FIFA” award to date.
We have compared the major individual awards you can receive a professional footballer. If you think there is a prestigious award that does not appear in this table, you can suggest it in the comments.
Messi and Ronaldo started playing football around the same time. This notion of people thinking “oh Ronaldo is 2 years older” is wrong. Let’s not forget Messi started playing with Barca, while Ronaldo was at Sporting. But it was at the same time. Second, Ronaldo is a machine. He will not retire in 2 years are you kidding me? If Zlatan can be scoring goals at 36 Ronaldo will be too. Messi on the other hand is as physically complete as Ronaldo. Good try though.