A big week loomed for Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

Heading into the week, both players had make or break games to play in both the Champions League and Spanish League.

Barcelona entered its Champions League tie with Bayern Munich leading 3-0 thanks to Messi's heroic first leg performance.

While he did not score any goals or create assists, he was instrumental in setting up the back-breaking goal with an incredible pass to Luis Suarez behind the Bayern defense.

Aside from that the Argentine was quiet with one shot on target, two shots overall and two dribbles. It was not a great night in a 3-2 loss, but he didn't need to be stellar.

Stellar was reserved for the weekend when Barcelona needed one win to secure Spain's title. With Barcelona struggling to produce offense against a stingy Atletico Madrid, Messi provided the magic.

He had no space inside the box with about four defenders around him. However, he carved out some space to take the shot and score. Watch below.


A title-clinching goal for Messi that will surely add to his Ballon d'Or resume for 2015.

So how does Ronaldo respond?

Ronaldo and Madrid needed to be Juventus on Wedneday, preferably by the score of 1-0 to lock up a spot in the Champions League final.

Sure enough, after one half, thanks to a Ronaldo penalty, it was 1-0. But Real Madrid imploded early in the second half and could never find an equalizer to push extra time and keep their Champions League hopes alive.

On the weekend, Ronaldo needed to help his team win and hope for a Barcelona loss. He did the former, but could do little to stop for the latter. He scored three goals and provided the lone assist as Madrid cruised to a 4-1 win over Espanyol. It was Ronaldo's seventh hat trick of the season and put his on 45 goals for the year.

All of the goals were scored in differing fashion. One goal came off a header (a clinical finish that Gareth Bale could have had against Juventus earlier in the week). Another showed off his blazing speed and another his perfect timing and presence of mind to finish a beautiful play from Javier Hernandez.

Season Stats

The big stats say one thing: Messi 1, Ronaldo 0. Unfortunately for him, Ronaldo will never get more than zero in the trophy stats while Messi could finish with three.

However, in the goal-scoring race, Ronaldo has an edge with 58 goals and 22 assists while Messi has 54 goals and 27 assists. Of the goals, 12 have come on penalties for Ronaldo while Messi has converted just six penalties. Ronaldo has seven hat tricks to Messi's six.

In Spain, Ronaldo has 45 goals and 16 assists while Messi has 41 goals and 18 assists; Ronaldo has scored nine penalties in Spain while Messi has had just five.

In the Champions League, both players have 10 goals but Messi has five assists to Ronaldo's four; Messi gets one more game to pad those stats while Ronaldo is finished with the competition.

Calendar Year Stats

Messi owns Ronaldo in 2015 with 31 goals and 18 assists in 32 games; Ronaldo has a respectable 26 goals and 10 assists in 29 matches.

More problematic is the fact that the situation could darken for the Portuguese superstar. Ronaldo has one more game before the summer puts him out of commission for three months. Messi has three more games to play with Barcelona and then gets a stab at the Copa America where he can run away from his rival in many respects.

If we are looking at who is the frontrunner to win the Ballon d'Or, Messi has made his case quite clear to this point, possible clear enough to win it already.

Streaking

Messi has not been a major force on the score sheet in his last three games, but he scored the big one when it was needed.

In his last 10 games he has nine goals and five assists, but has just one goal in his last three games.

Ronaldo has had a better fortune thus far on the score sheet with goals in four of his last five, including two hat tricks in that span.

In his last 10 Ronaldo has an identical nine goals and five assists for Madrid, including two straight games of scoring goals.

Winner

Messi made the difference in one big game, but Ronaldo scored four goals on the week and it is hard to pin any of Madrid's failures on him. He delivered when needed but circumstances and poor play from other teammates ultimately made his efforts unimportant.

Messi could have clinched the competition this week this week but now holds a 16-15 lead. At best Ronaldo can clinch a tie with a better showing in the final week of the season or Messi could win it all with an inspiring turnout.

For last week's installment of the season-long series, click HERE.