Messi vs. Ronaldo 2014-15: Ronaldo Breaks Personal Scoring Record, Wins Pichichi
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi finished up the Spanish League season this past weekend with Ronaldo ending his season altogether.
While Messi still has two games to go, the head-to-head comparison between the world's two best offensive stars is now over. Entering this final week of competition, Messi held a 16-15 lead over his rival. Would Ronaldo tie it up or would Messi wind up clinching the competition?
The final games for both players meant little. Barcelona had already conquered Spain while Real Madrid would already finish second. This game really came down to individuals. For Ronaldo, it was about winning the Pichichi and extending his scoring lead over Messi. For Messi it was about catching Ronaldo and stripping him of the only honor he had a chance at winning this season.
Messi got his first chance at bat and put up a solid performance with two goals for Barcelona as the team drew 2-2 with Deportivo La Coruna. The latter side admittedly had more at stake and played like it throughout the contest, but Messi still put in his best shift and managed two goals. However, he entered the week, four goals back of Ronaldo in Spain and could not catch him.
So when Ronaldo got started at home against Getafe a few hours later, he was already the Pichichi winner. At that point it was about breaking another record -- the 60-goal output he had made in 2011-12.
He managed to top the feat with a hat trick in the first 45 minutes of play. He scored from numerous positions, including a free kick goal and a penalty to cap his season with a career-best 48 goals in La Liga and an overall haul of 61. Throw in the career-high 22 assists (his previous high were the 15 helpers from 2013-14) and Ronaldo had, without any doubt, his finest offensive year for Real Madrid. Unfortunately it meant nothing in terms of titles, but the superstar showed the world that he was as lethal as ever at scoring at the age of 30.
Season Stats
Ronaldo finished the year with 61 goals and 22 assists in all competitions, including 13 penalties and a whopping eight hat tricks. In Spain he scored 48 goals and 16 assists, including 10 penalties; all of his hat tricks came in Spanish competition. Moreover, he scored hat tricks in each of his last two games for Los Blancos.
Messi has two games left and when all is said and done, two hat tricks in the Champions League and Copa del Rey finals, would put him over Ronaldo with 62 goals. But as it stands, he has a solid 56 goals and 27 assists overall and finished with 43 goals and 18 assists in Spain. Those numbers are the third best of his career; he scored 73 goals in 2011-12 and then managed 60 in 2012-13.
Calendar Year Stats
Messi had a strong start to the year and still leads in this category by a solid margin. However, Ronaldo has caught up and is not too far from his rival in terms of goal scoring on the year. Ronaldo has 29 goals in 30 games while Messi has 33 goals and 33 matches. Watching Ronaldo's scoring output, that margin is not a big hill to climb for the Real Madrid star.
Messi does have 18 assists while Ronaldo has just 10. That alone puts Messi ahead of Ronaldo in the current Ballon d'Or race.
Ronaldo would need to outscore Messi the rest of the year to catch up. Considering the fact that Messi has two more season games and a Copa America to contest this summer, it might be hard for Ronaldo to catch up.
Streaking
Messi is not as hot as he was early on when he was scored well over a goal per game. That is no shocker as scorers have a tendency to be streaky. Of late his output is still respectable but still far from the dominance of early 2015. He has scored three goals in his last four games, a respectable feat, but not worthy of a man scoring 33 goals in 33 games.
In his last 10, Messi has scored 11 goals and four assists.
The Real Madrid man scored hat tricks in two straight contests and had hat tricks in three of his last six games! That feat is unsustainable, but it was close to the numbers that Ronaldo was putting up when the season was still young and fatigue was not a concern.
Since his five goal explosion on April 5, Ronaldo has scored 19 goals in 14 games.
In his last 10, Ronaldo scored 12 goals and five assists. Admittedly, Ronaldo was not running away from Messi, but he was certainly making quite the impact on the score sheet.
Winner
At the end of the day, three goals trump two in a meaningless game for both players, especially when Ronaldo accomplished the feat in under 45 minutes and could have had more if he had played the full 90 minutes (he played just 58 minutes).
The 16-16 tie reflects that these two superstars are extremely close to one another when it comes to their performances with few differentiators.
That said, scoring and individual showings does not define a season. In a later installment, we will reflect back on which superstar had the better season overall. That is likely to be unsurprising for those following these superstars, but it will put into perspective some of these past installments.