The Greatest Forward of the Current Era The Spanish League scores on average 3% and 5% more Goals than the English and the Italian League, hence to ensure a fair comparison of players in these Leagues we have normalized the statistics for footballers in the Italian and the English league so as they don’t fall behind the juggernauts in Spain.

The Analysis is among

§ Lionel Messi § Cristiano Ronaldo § Zlatan Ibhrahimovic § Wayne Rooney § Carlos Tevez § David Villa

And divided for various competitions

§ League § Champions League § Domestic Cup § International Games

The deciding parameters for our analysis are

§ Goals per Season § Goals per Game § Assists per Game § Shots per Game § Accuracy § Conversion Rate (CR= Goals/Shots on target*100)

League:

3 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game Shots/ Game Accuracy

Conversion Rate

Messi 29.33 0.89 0.40 4.28 50.59 41.42

Ronaldo 26 0.84 0.22 6.72 38.53 32.41

Ibhrahimovic 19.34 0.61 0.27 3.98 44.81 34.44

Rooney 17 0.56 0.25 4.49 35.00 35.75

Tevez 16.67 0.52 0.17 3.22 37.54 40.47

Villa 22.34 0.68 0.14 4.31 44.59 35.14

5 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game Shots/ Game Accuracy

Conversion Rate

Messi 22.4 0.71 0.34 3.41 46.58 49.58

Ronaldo 25.6 0.80 0.25 6.27 44.16 29.32

Ibhrahimovic 18.4 0.62 0.25 3.45 43.37 46.51

Rooney 15.8 0.52 0.30 4.17 44.59 29.90

Tevez 14.6 0.46 0.18 3.07 43.63 34.25

Villa 20.2 0.62 0.18 3.74 42.91 41.39

The analysis for the League shows Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo to be the top performers in the League, Zlatan Ibhrahimovic, Wayne Rooney & Carlos Tevez are a bit far and only David Villa comes close to performing at a level of the legends of the current era.

Messi and Ronaldo both score more than 25 goals every Season with a high probability of being on the score card against any opponent in the League in each Game, almost a Goal per Game, but Messi is more likely to create a chance for his teammates, on the other hand Ronaldo manages to keep the opponent Goalkeeper busy for the whole 90 minutes with almost 7 attempts on Goals in each Game, Even though Messi has relatively less Shots on Goal he has a much higher Conversion Rate i.e., of all the Shots on Target almost half of them end up in the net for Messi, close to one third in case of Ronaldo implying Messi to be a much fierce threat that Ronaldo.

Ibhrahimovic, Rooney & Tevez score more than 15 goals every Season with almost a Goal every two Games, and manage to have 3 or 4 Shots on Goals on par with Messi, in terms

of Conversion Rate Ibhrahimovic and Tevez beat Ronaldo and come close to Messi come close but Rooney is a bit off.

Villa manages to score more than 20 Goals every Season, with an average of a Goal every 2 Games and tests the opposition goal keeper atleast 4 times in every game he plays but Villa has a Conversion Rate close and challenging Messi and beating Ronaldo.

Champions League:

3 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game Shots/ Game Accuracy

Conversion Rate

Messi 9.33 0.79 0.22 4.24 46.07 48.25

Ronaldo 5.66 0.66 0.16 5.80 42.78 27.47

Ibhrahimovic 3 0.34 0.15 3.48 43.09 24.13

Rooney 4 0.46 0.25 3.57 45.15 29.01

Tevez 3 0.25 0.09 1.91 42.87 32.05

Villa 3.66 0.38 0.12 2.61 35.46 54.28

5 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game Shots/ Game Accuracy

Conversion Rate

Messi 7.4 0.65 0.15 3.44 46.48 44.04

Ronaldo 5.8 0.59 0.20 5.41 37.44 30.60

Ibhrahimovic 2.8 0.34 0.11 3.23 40.43 28.76

Rooney 4 0.41 0.16 3.13 36.74 42.29

Tevez 3 0.25 0.09 1.91 42.87 32.05

Villa 3.66 0.38 0.12 2.61 35.46 54.28

In the Champions League, Lionel Messi come on top with only Cristiano Ronaldo coming close to challenge him, but surprisingly or not David Villa has the highest Conversion Rate among them.

Messi has scored more than 7 Goals in the Champion’s League on average with almost 2 Goals every 3 Games, no wonder Barce have won the Champions League twice in 4 years and might make it thrice in 6 years, Ronaldo on the other hand scores about 6 Goals, with an average 1 Goal every 2 Games but in this Competitions has been more generous relatively to Messi in terms of creating Goals for his teammates, Ronaldo does beat the rest when it comes to Shots attempted with almost 6 Shots every game, but

Messi manages to have a superior Accuracy Rate & Conversion Rate again making him a much efficient forward than Ronaldo

Ibhrahimovic, Rooney, Tevez & Villa all score about 3 or 4 goals, but one thing to be noticed is that Tevez and Villa have played in the champion’s league twice and thrice resp. in the last 5 years, Ibhrahimovic & Rooney put in 3 shots on goal every game with around 40% of them on target but Rooney has a much better Conversion Rate than Ibhrahimovic.

Villa manages to score about 4 Goals on average in the Champion’s League with almost 3 Shots attempted every Game with about one third of them on target and more than half of the ones on target ending on the Scorecard.

International:

3 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game

Messi 3 0.25 0.12

Ronaldo 3.66 0.48 0.01

Ibhrahimovic 2.33 0.40 0.02

Rooney 4.66 0.50 0.33

Tevez 1.33 0.27 0.14

Villa 13.66 0.79 0.13

5 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game

Messi 2.6 0.31 0.15

Ronaldo 2.8 0.35 0.01

Ibhrahimovic 1.75 0.30 0.01

Rooney 3.75 0.42 0.25

Tevez 1.2 0.21 0.16

Villa 9.2 0.57 0.17

Although Messi and Ronaldo are considered Legends already but on the International stage they haven’t been able to show their supremacy, on the other hand Villa has been amazingly successful, with more than a goal every 2 games, much higher than the rest, with only Rooney a real challenger. Rooney manages to score almost a goal every 2

games for England and is more likely to create opportunities for his teammates than the rest.

Domestic Cup:

3 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game

Messi 4.66 0.69 0

Ronaldo 4 0.68 0

Ibhrahimovic 2.33 0.75 0

Rooney 0.66 0.33 0.33

Tevez 1.66 0.42 0.13

Villa 0.66 0.17 0

5 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game

Messi 3.2 0.61 0

Ronaldo 3.5 0.70 0.03

Ibhrahimovic 1.75 0.56 0

Rooney 1.8 0.44 0.28

Tevez 1.2 0.35 0.28

Villa 0.6 0.17 0

In domestic Cup Competitions Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo & Zlatan Ibhrahimovic come on top scoring 2 goals every 3 games, the rest Wayne Rooney & Carlos Tevez managing to score more than a goal every 3 games.

Overall:

5 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game

Messi 46.33 0.75 0.27

Ronaldo 38 0.74 0.18

Ibhrahimovic 27 0.52 0.19

Rooney 26.33 0.53 0.26

Tevez 20.33 0.48 0.17

Villa 37.66 0.66 0.12

5 Season Average

Goals/ Season Goals/ Game Assists/ Game

Messi 35.6 0.64 0.24

Ronaldo 37 0.70 0.20

Ibhrahimovic 24 0.53 0.19

Rooney 24.6 0.49 0.27

Tevez 18.2 0.42 0.17

Villa 32.2 0.59 0.15

Looking at the overall statistics for the season Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo & David Villa’s performance is beyond Zlatan Ibhrahimovic, Carlos Tevez & Wayne Rooney, scoring more than 30 Goals every Season, more than 35 in case of Messi and Ronaldo, with all three ending on the score sheet almost twice every 3 Games, the rest, Ibhrahimovic & Rooney score about 25 Goals every Season with a Goal every two Games and Tevez scores around 20 Goals a Season with almost a Goal every 2 Games

A thing to notice is Lionel Messi’s statistics for the last 3 seasons, Messi averages more than 45 Goals every Season with almost a Goal every Game and also creating opportunities for his teammates.

So after normalizing the data for the last 5 Seasons so as we ensure the less number of Goals scored in the English & Italian League do not affect or give an advantage to players in the Spanish League, Messi & Ronaldo come on top with Villa chasing the duo, Ibhrahimovic & Rooney fall short and Tevez is quite far from the Titans. Although all 6 footballers are truly gifted technique wise and on their best day it would be impossible to

choose one among them but over a course of 5 years some perform much better than the rest namely Lionel Messi & Cristiano Ronaldo.