The battle between the two best players in the world continued this past week.

Both superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi had chances to test their respective mettles in two games, including a Spanish League tilt and Champions League bout. How did they manage? Would Ronaldo continue his hot streak or would Messi take the week?

Ronaldo had his first shot at glory on Tuesday when Real Madrid hosted Liverpool. One goal and Ronaldo would tie Raul's 71-goal Champions League record. And it certainly looked like he was going to give it his best.

He took 10 shots at goal, including five on target. He made two key passes. He passed at a rate of 80 percent success. But the goal did not come. At times, he looked good. But during others, he simply looked like he was trying too hard. He had a great chance early in the game that Simon Mignolet managed to tip over the goal. After that chance, Ronaldo looked frustrated and was never at his most lethal.

The match ended without a Ronaldo goal, ending a tremendous run of 12 straight games with a goal from Madrid's talisman.

On Saturday, he would get back to work against Rayo Vallecano at home. And he was superb. The passing was not as great (he only converted on 68 percent of his attempted passes), but Ronaldo did things he does not usually get credit for. He made a tremendous pass to Gareth Bale that set up the opening goal before making an identical low cross to set up Karim Benzema's goal that gave Los Blancos a 4-1 lead.

From there, Ronaldo would eventually add his own goal with a little bit of luck, cementing one of his best displays of the year. With the goal and two assists, Ronaldo now has 18 goals and five assists in the Spanish League.

So how does Messi respond?

He got the second crack at tying and surpassing Raul's record and unlike his rival, he managed the tie. Messi actually came into the game against Ajax with 69 goals and put up a tremendous two-goal performance to leap past Ronaldo into a tie for first place. The best bit of it all is that he gets the first crack at breaking the tie as Barcelona plays its next Champions League before Real Madrid does.

Aside from that, Messi won three aerials (more than anyone on his team), while completing 85 percent of his passes. He had eight shots on goal, four of them on target and had 87 touches in the entire match. It was one of his finest performance of the year, especially because the rest of his team was off the mark and relied heavily on him to deliver. And that he did.

Barcelona was equally poor on Saturday when it traveled to Almeria and was behind 1-0 after one half.

And Messi delivered his worst performance of the year. His decision to hold on to the ball for two long in the opposing half led to him giving away the ball in the play that led to Almeria's goal. He would go on to hit the post two times with chances but did not have a single key pass in the entire game.

Winner

This one is very tight. On one hand, Messi single-handedly won a game for Blaugrana. On the other hand, he had his worst game of the year. Meanwhile, Ronaldo was great in both games, despite being unlucky against Liverpool.

So Ronaldo wins by the thinnest of margins and now holds a 7-2 lead.

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