Was anyone better than Messi, Ronaldo at same age at in 2024?

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The era of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo officially ended this year. For the first time since 2003, neither player was nominated for the Ballon d’Or. And as we all know, Ballon d’Or voting is the One True Keeper of Soccer History.

Of course, it’s, you know, not that. Not at all. Dani Carvajal in fourth? Really? But for all of its flaws, the award is the only consistent historical record we have for the sport.

The Messi-Ronaldo era, though, has been over for some time now. Ronaldo last finished in the top three in Ballon d’Or voting in 2019, and while Messi did win the Ballon d’Or just last year, he hasn’t had any notable impact on the highest level since December 2022, at the FIFA World Cup final in Qatar.

So, while we spent the better part of the last 20 years comparing Messi and Ronaldo to each other, we now get to look backward and compare everyone else to Messi and Ronaldo. To do that, we’ve created the “Messi-Ronaldo Line.” It’s the combined non-penalty goals and assists rate for the two players, at every age of their careers.

We’ll start at 17 when they both made their professional debuts, and we’ll go all the way up to age 35, which was Messi’s final season in Europe. We can come back at the end of the season to do it again, but today we’re going to look back at 2024 across Europe’s “Big Five” top leagues through Boxing Day.

The data for Messi and Ronaldo concerns domestic seasons — defined by their age at the start of the campaign — and we’re judging current players based on their age right now and their domestic performance across all of 2024. At least 1,500 minutes of game time are needed to qualify.

Has anyone, at any age, been better than Messi and Ronaldo this year? Let’s find out.

• Messi: 70 minutes, 1.29 non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes
• Ronaldo: 1,080 mins, 0.50 npG+A per 90
• Average: 575 mins, 0.90 npG+A per 90

This one doesn’t really count — Ronaldo was playing in Portugal, Messi only played 70 minutes — but we’re including it just so we can mention Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal, who played nearly 2,700 minutes this year and averaged 0.73 npG+A per 90 minutes. Among all of the human beings currently walking, crawling, or lying prone on this earth, Yamal has the best chance at eventually being mentioned in the same breath as Messi and Ronaldo.

• Messi: 1,191 mins, 0.89 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 1,555 mins, 0.46 npG+A per 90
• Average: 1,373 mins, 0.68 npG+A per 90

Only one player who is currently 18 has played even 1,000 minutes across Europe’s Big Five leagues this year: Paris Saint-Germain’s Warren Zaïre-Emery, who averaged 0.14 npG+A.

• Messi: 1,983 mins, 0.77 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,423 mins, 0.33 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,203 mins, 0.55 npG+A per 90

Among players who hit our minutes threshold, the closest is Désiré Doué, who recorded 0.47 npG+A per 90 minutes across some 1,700 minutes in 2024 for Rennes and PSG.

• Messi: 1,973 mins, 0.82 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,286 mins, 0.59 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,130 mins, 0.71 npG+A per 90

Another miss. The closest is Borussia Dortmund’s Jamie Gittens: 0.61 npG+A per 90 in 1,626 minutes. Among players recording something close to the Messi-Ronaldo minutes load, the best is Manchester City’s Savinho with 0.46 npg+A in nearly 2,500 minutes.

• Messi: 2,516 mins, 1.11 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,781 mins, 0.71 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,649 mins, 0.91 npG+A per 90

We’ve got one! We’ve finally got one! Bayern Munich’s Jamal Musiala averaged 0.93 npG+A in 2,124 minutes this season. I think he serves as a useful comparison, too.

Most young players with elite dribbling skills end up disappointing popular expectations. They’re so fun to watch — and so easy to identify as different — that they immediately stand out. And as they breeze by defenders with ease, the projection becomes pretty simple: oh man, just imagine what’ll happen once he develops an end product.

But the ability to dribble past a defender has almost zero correlation with the vision, creativity, and anticipatory skills that all of the best creators and goal-scorers share. I’d even argue that dribbling requires a kind of tunnel vision that actually runs counter to those skills. And so, the best young dribblers rarely develop these skills because those skills are so incredibly hard to develop.

One of the things that made Messi and Ronaldo so special is that they did develop those skills and were able to pair them with the physical and technical skills that made them all-time great 1v1 players. It already seems like Musiala might be doing that, too. A quick shoutout for Aston Villa’s Jhon “Don’t Call Me ‘John'” Durán: 0.99 npG+A but only in 900-ish minutes.

• Messi: 2,805 mins, 1.35 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,747 mins, 1.08 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,776 mins, 1.22 npG+A per 90

No one hits this mark, but Chelsea’s Cole Palmer deserves a mention for averaging more than 0.9 npg+A in more than 3,000 minutes.

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• Messi: 2,858 mins, 1.45 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,742 mins, 0.66 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,800 mins, 1.06 npG+A per 90

He’s gaming a system that he’s not aware exists, but Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise did defeat the Messi-Ronaldo Line in 2024: 1.15 npG+A in just slightly over 1,500 minutes.

Among the 23-year-olds who played over 2,000 minutes in 2024, only Atalanta’s Charles De Ketelaere (0.84) and Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka (0.81) broke the 0.8 npG+A mark.

• Messi: 3,270 mins, 1.54 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,461 mins, 1.06 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,866 mins, 1.30 npG+A per 90

I talk a lot about how players enter their primes at age 24 and leave them around 30, though Messi and Ronaldo did nothing to suggest otherwise: their four best aggregate years occurred between the ages of 24 and 29. In other words, this is where it gets really hard for everyone else. No 24-year-olds were anywhere near Messi and Ronaldo this past year. Not even the guy whose Ballon d’Or “snub” caused Real Madrid to throw a months-long tantrum. Vinícius Júnior averaged 0.99 npG+A in 2,200-plus minutes.

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• Messi: 2,650 mins, 1.80 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,914 mins, 1.27 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,782 mins, 1.54 npG+A per 90

No one came close to this mark in 2024 — at any age. Ronaldo had an all-time great season; Messi had maybe the greatest season we’ve ever seen from a professional soccer player.

• Messi: 2,501 mins, 1.15 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 3,350 mins, 1.24 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,926 mins, 1.20 npG+A per 90

This was the “worst” collective season of their collective prime years, and it was still way better than anyone of the same age currently playing in Europe’s Big Five leagues. Among those with 2,000 minutes or more, Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé (0.9) and AC Milan’s Christian Pulisic (0.66) are the top two.

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• Messi: 3,375 mins, 1.49 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,716 mins, 1.26 npG+A per 90
• Average: 3,046 mins, 1.38 npG+A per 90

Nope! Another all-time great Ronaldo season, another “maybe the best season we’ve ever seen” season from Messi.

• Messi: 2,729 mins, 1.22 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,534 mins, 1.21 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,632 mins, 1.22 npG+A per 90

There was a sizable stretch of this year where it seemed like Barcelona’s Raphinha might be the best player in the world. In 2024, he played 2,361 minutes and averaged 0.84 npG+A. Stuttgart’s Deniz Undav (0.96) and Brentford’s Yoane Wissa (0.9) were the only 28-year-olds who hit or broke the 0.9 npG+A mark in 2024.

• Messi: 2,830 mins, 1.27 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 3,100 mins, 1.57 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,965 mins, 1.42 npG+A per 90

This is cruel. For Villarreal and Atlético Madrid, Alexander Sørloth played over 2,000 minutes and averaged 1.3 npG+A per 90 minutes. That’s better — by a good margin — than any other player in the world in 2024. And it’s still not particularly close to the Messi-Ronaldo average at the same age.

• Messi: 3,000 mins, 1.14 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 3,183 mins, 1.07 npG+A per 90
• Average: 3,092 mins, 1.11 npG+A per 90

The transformation from devastating dribblers to devastating goal-scorers allowed both Messi and Ronaldo to have perhaps the best prime-year stretches we’ve ever seen. But a continued shift away from a reliance on their physical skills — Ronaldo by becoming a goal-crashing wing-poacher, Messi by basically becoming a midfielder who also scored a ton of goals — allowed them to also have the best post-20s stretches we’ve ever seen.

To wit: the most productive 30-year-old in 2024 was Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard, with 0.61 npG+A in 1,900 minutes.

• Messi: 2,713 mins, 1.14 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,539 mins, 0.89 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,626 mins, 1.02 npG+A per 90

We’ve got another one! Harry Kane averaged 1.05 npG+A for Bayern Munich in more than 2,500 minutes in 2024. But because he’s Harry Kane: Bayern lost their first league title since 2012, England lost their second straight Euros final, and Dani Carvajal got twice as many Ballon d’Or votes as he did.

• Messi: 2,880 mins, 0.96 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,285 mins, 1.06 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,583 mins, 1.01 npG+A per 90

And another one! Thanks to a truly absurd first half of the 2024-25 season, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah averaged 1.14 npG+A per 90 in 2024. He’s one of the few players to rival Messi and Ronaldo while they were still winning Ballon d’Ors, and despite advancing deeper into his 30’s, he’s the best player in the world right now.

• Messi: 3,023 mins, 0.81 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,688 mins, 0.74 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,856 mins, 0.78 npG+A per 90

Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne looks completely miserable these days, so someone should tell him that he averaged more goals and assists (0.88) per 90 minutes this year than both Messi and Ronaldo did when they were his age. The same goes for Lyon’s Alexandre Lacazette (0.81), who has 42 non-penalty goals and seven assists in the two-plus seasons since leaving Arsenal.

• Messi: 2,153 mins, 0.79 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,917 mins, 0.74 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,535 mins, 0.77 npG+A per 90

The closest player doesn’t come close: Danny Welbeck put up 0.47 npG+A in 2,000-plus minutes for Brighton & Hove Albion in 2024.

• Messi: 2,837 mins, 0.92 npG+A per 90
• Ronaldo: 2,802 mins, 0.80 npG+A per 90
• Average: 2,820 mins, 0.86 npG+A per 90

Once again, nobody comes close. Bayern Munich’s Thomas Müller is a year older than Welbeck and has the same numbers. At 35, Messi played his last season in Europe, while Ronaldo played his final season at Juventus before moving back to Manchester United for that ill-fated year-and-a-half.

However, there is one even older player who beat the 35-Year-Old-Messi-Ronaldo Line. Robert Lewandowski averaged 0.88 npG+A for Barcelona in 2024. After spending almost his entire career in the shadows of Messi and Ronaldo — and losing his best shot at a Ballon d’Or because of the bizarre decision to cancel the 2020 award due to COVID-19 — Lewandowski finally found a way to surpass both of them.