Britain’s Daily Mail has ranked the 50 best football players of all time, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi both making the top 10 of the list. This is completely understandable because over the years, fans have witnessed the long-standing rivalry between the two legends of Portugal and Argentina, when the pair won a total of 13 Golden Balls.

Accordingly, Ronaldo has won the Golden Ball 5 times, the second most in history only after Messi (8 times). He leads the list of Ballon D”or nominations with 18 times. Obviously, the fact that CR7 did not even make it into the top 5 on the list will surprise many people.

And yet, even though he is nearly 40 years old, Ronaldo still plays very well and has a great influence on his juniors. Ronaldo himself has scored 879 goals and made 249 assists in 1,213 matches. Besides the Golden Ball, he also won four UEFA Men’s Player of the Year awards, seven Champions League top scorer awards, four European Golden Shoes and FIFA’s Puskas award among many other titles.

Evaluating Ronaldo, the Daily Mail commented that “Dedication, scoring ability and professional spirit help Ronaldo rank second only to Lionel Messi in his generation”. And the Daily Mail rankings have shown exactly that, but there is a difference between the two players mentioned above.

Specifically, while Ronaldo ranked 10th on the list, Messi suddenly ranked first, surpassing two famous players, “King of Soccer” Pele and “Golden Boy” Maradona. In history, Pele is the only player to have won the World Cup twice and Maradona. The Daily Mail also paid respect to the late famous player with the line: “He is an angel who knows how to rebel. A low center of gravity brings giving Maradona the ability to maintain balance and incredible strength. Maradona is the greatest player of the Argentina team and Napoli Club”.

Another notable absence from the top 50 list is the Brazilian national team’s all-time top scorer, Neymar.