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 past 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 leagues through Boxing Day (Dec. 26).
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.
