Lionel Messi has moved ahead of his long-time rival Cristiano Ronaldo in non-penalty goals and he has done so in 144 fewer matches.
The Argentine superstar netted twice as Paris Saint-Germain came from behind to edge out RB Leipzig 3-2 in Tuesday night’s Champions League action with his second coming via the penalty spot, with an audacious Panenka effort.
Messi showed his generosity by passing up the chance of netting a hat-trick in the encounter with a last-minute penalty for PSG as he instead allowed teammate Kylian Mbappe the chance to add a fourth, but the Frenchman’s effort was blazed over the bar.
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Those two goals pushed the Argentine up to a remarkable 755 career across his club and international career, of which 654 did not come from the penalty spot.
That nudges Messi ahead of Ronaldo on the second figure with the Manchester United forward scoring 653 non-penalty goals across the course of his entire career.
While Messi is a solitary goal ahead of Ronaldo in the non-penalty measurement, he has achieved this despite playing 144 fewer matches than the Portuguese superstar.
Across Messi’s senior club career across his spells at Barca and PSG, alongside his 156 senior international caps for Argentina, means that he has played 940 matches in his senior career.
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This is significantly fewer than Ronaldo – who is two years and four months older than the Argentine – who has clocked up a remarkable 1084 appearances across his career with Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and Portugal.
Broken down into goals per minute, this means that Messi scores a non-penalty goal once every 118 minutes across his senior career – a stronger record than Ronaldo, who averages a goal not from the spot every 135 minutes.
Both players have better scoring figures with non-penalty goals across their club careers, with Messi averaging a goal every 108 minutes at club level with Ronaldo netting every 133 minutes.
Despite the discrepancy of non-penalty goals at club level, Ronaldo has a much higher strike rate of non-penalty goals at international level in comparison to Messi.
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The Portugal forward has 99 non-penalty goals for his nation – one every 146 minutes – while Messi has scored 62 non-penalty goals for Argentina, equating to one every 208 minutes.
Ronaldo also has an advantage in terms of having scored more goals from open play or free-kicks in the Champions League, with 118 strikes in comparison to Messi's 106.
The two’s incredible exploits have no doubt driven the other on to further greatness and continued to spur them on to more exploits.
Ronaldo previously revealed in an interview with French outlet RMC Sport : " I really admire the career he has had so far.
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"He has already said that he had trouble when I left the Spanish league because it is a rivalry that he appreciates.
"It is a good rivalry that exists in football, but this is no exception.
"Michael Jordan had rivals in basketball, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost were great rivals in Formula One.
"The only common point between all the big rivalries in the sport is that they are healthy."
