This saturday, Cristiano Ronaldo will fight for his 4th Champions League title, and, no matter the results, he will probably win his 5th Ballon d'Or.

However, according to WhoScored statistics, the Real Madrid star is only the 19th best player of the world this season. He has a rating of 7.61 in 2016/2017.

Cristiano Ronaldo's rating is at his lowest since 2009, when he joined Real Madrid. He has never had a score below 7.99 (which was his rating at 2015/2016).

Again, according to WhoScored, the best player of the world right now is Neymar (8.52), slightly better than Lionel Messi (8.47). Then, Thiago Alcantara (8.28).

However, there is also no doubt that Cristiano Ronaldo has been the most decisive player in the continental competition. Of all 10 goals, 8 were in knockout stage: 5 against Bayern Munich, 3 against Atletico Madrid.

What do you think about this? How does the rating justify his performance this season?
Has he been more irregular? Does he deserve this season's Ballon d'Or?

PS: Please, don`t start a flame war here. Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi are both wonderful players. Period.

no matter the results, he will probably win his 5th Ballon d'Or.

Really ? Why ? His season except 3 games in CL wasn't worth a podium let alone first place, its like giving Lewa BO because he scored 5 goals in 6 minutes without taking into consideration rest of the season. But I see maybe what you are implying, the way people see Football ( TV show ) may end up having people voting for him.
Since it's journalists who vote, no CL means no BO, journalists watch Football regularly.

He is ranked below 18 players of which only 6 won their domestic leagues, 1 of them is Kroos so it's safe to say he is very much underrated.

Considering the fact that he won Euro Cup for the first time for his country as the captain, domestic league La Liga and is once again going to play in the Champions League final which his team is trying to win back to back it's also safe to say that he deserves the Ballon d'Or as well, after all in his worst competitive year in the last 5-6 seasons and yet he still scored 40 goals in total.

Not everything is in ratings, Neymar has had a worse season in every single way but he's number 1 in ratings for who knows what reason.

Statistic sites are just that, statistics. There is no bias, no favorites, not political principles applied. The only thing that can be wrong in stats is how they are scaled, coded, plus or minus, weight in certain areas. Not all stats are created equal funny enough, even though they should be.

Just like the Fifa World Rankings, most don't consider this to be the overall deciding factor to designate the best.

Complete nonsene. CR7 is the best player in the world and the best player in history (this is becoming so cliché to say as everyone already knows it), devious "rating websites" won't take any of this away from the man.

CR lives in a world where people envy him so much they choose to blindfold themselves and hate, and that is in fact fortunate for him, because it is what keeps on driving the man making him the best.

I would put him in mid 20's maybe even as far as the 40's.

@tiki_taka

As Golazo111 said, even if he scores less, assists less, has less shots on target and etc, he is the main reason Portugal won Euro, and contributed decisively to the La Liga title and the CL finals. Talking about influence and all, and, of course, votes from journalists (mostly bias anyways), he is a Ballon d'Or contender. And I recall there are two votes now? one by journalists and one by spectators?

@Golazo111

Agreed. As much as I like Neymar -- I hate his diving but, yeah, his "youtube football" is really exciting to watch, and is decisive sometimes -- he is not worth of the 1st place.

@DarthFooty

Sometimes I wonder if different "weights" should be applied for different leagues. For example, a goal against a major club in a major competition should not be the same as a relegation club in domestic league... Or, if a goal in La Liga should not have the same score as in Serie A.

@Lilywhite

Rating sites are not trying to take anything from anyone. They are numbers. They try to be cold, exact, but fail to do so because we all know football is not an exact mathematical science.

@Kirsi16 I can see that happening but then the numbers would stop being non-bias. It makes sense to have weight in some areas, but at the end of the day, that weight is decided by people who think something is better than something else. Others will think differently which brings me to Lilywhite.

@Lilywhite I am not sure if you are just joking or not, but if not, and I want to respect your opinion, Not everyone thinks CR7 is the best player in the world, more so the best in history. Don't get me wrong, he is going to be one of the top best ever once all is said and done, but for some, he won't be the best ever.

For me, Messi is the best player in the world. I am very critical of how I factor this, but in the end, it is how I feel, which is an opinion. Right or wrong. These sites are not a conspiracy against Ronaldo. They are just numbers. I don't consider Neymar as the top player the site indicates, but I don't disagree with his statas as one of the better players today. His time is coming to really shine I think, I just hope he keeps his head. :)

That was last year guys, Euro is on 2015/16, we are in 2016/17, What the hell are you talking about ? Last BO rewarded him for the Euro win, won't go on his individual performance critic there...

What does the Euro 2016 do in this thread guys ?

Agreed. As much as I like Neymar -- I hate his diving but, yeah, his "youtube football" is really exciting to watch, and is decisive sometimes -- he is not worth of the 1st place.

At least not when you consider that other players have won more this season and just by looking at his stats, but there has to be something more in the algorithm because he is the captain of Brazil most of the time and holds the ball alot in Barcelona.

I don't know how it works but just by looking at Mertens that has like 15 more goals, 1 man-of-the-match more and 1 less assist than Neymar, by some logical that should put his average very close to Neymar but he's behind a whole 0.75+ score...

So I'm actually not impressed that Neymar has had only 11 assists considering that Suarez has 29 goals and Messi 37 goals.

Either way, just by what Cristiano's team did from summer 2016 till now he should be at least in the top 10 regardless of everybody else IMO.

@tiki_taka

My bad. Time goes so fast I still think the Euro was like, some days ago. =/

@DarkFooty Not everyone wants to think CR7 is the best player in the world and history. But that doesn't matter, because everyone knows it. Whether they want to admit it or not is something that I, frankly, am not very interested in.

@Lilywhite I respectfully and completely disagree with you. :)

That's cool, I reckon you won't be living in denial forever - let's cross our fingers.

:)

These rankings are based only on domestic league it seems, judging from the number of goals. (let me know if I'm mistaken) So that alone weakens this ranking as a source for the best player of this season.

With that said, Cristiano was not performing to his best at the beginning of the season. He was not scoring as much as he used to also. Zidane also has chosen to not play him against lower tier opposition this end of the season, which could have likely boosted up some of his stats and overall ranking.

Let's say it included all the other competitions. Even then it wouldn't work for me because this rating system treats every match as if all of them had the same value. Should a game against Sunderland or Sporting have the same influence on the overall rating as matches in Champions League quarterfinals, semis, final? I don't think it should be this way as it's easier to get a good rating against the teams I mentioned than to do so at Champions League crucial stages.

The reason Cristiano is in pole position to win the Ballon D'or this season is because he has been crucial at key moments this end of the season for Real Madrid. I see players above Cristiano who have been nowhere to be found when their team needed them to perform in crucial matches.

@Yvan21

Was gonna mention some of this, excellent points. +++1

Cristiano was rested for 9 La Liga matches - most of them against lower-tier teams who he has a deadly scoring record against.

There was a good article on this somewhere on ESPN. Zidane has convinced Ronaldo to rest more often and give up the Pichichi / Golden Boot - an award he desperately chases every season. By giving up the Golden Boot, Ronaldo is now able to be more fresh towards the end of the season (extremely crucial) rather than being doggedly tired and injured (proof is in the 2014 and 2016 CL finals: he was strapped on the thigh because of an injury in 2014, and he was just exhausted at the end of 2016).

Just look at the end of this season. He scored 6 goals in his last 4 La Liga matches, picking up crucial victories against Valencia (historically tough opponent for Madrid and Barca), Sevilla (4th place team), Celta de Vigo (eliminated Madrid in the Copa), and Malaga (a tough place to win in Madrid's recent history).

In the Champions League? 8 goals across the quarters and semis. Isn't that the type of performance you want from your star player? Isn't that the argument you'd use if Messi was struggling early in the league but turned up to demolish teams in the crucial stages of the season? Of course it is, @Tiki. But I suppose it takes a brain to figure that out. Trolls don't have that level of intelligence.

By convincing him to give up those free 10+ goals against lower-tier teams and forfeiting that Golden Shoe and 50+ goal season, Ronaldo is now able to be more energized during crucial quarter-final, semi-final, and league matches. I'll be damned if he isn't a constant threat against Buffon on Saturday. Even if he doesn't score, I expect him to nail at least two or three deadly strikes at Buffon.

I reckon that 40 goals in 45 matches, excluding all those scrub teams he could have easily scored 10+ goals in 9 matches against, is a hell of a good record. Zidane is using his reputation and wisdom to convince Ronaldo to stop chasing goals and instead chase crucial goals. If Ronaldo continues to listen to Zidane and continues to get a regular amount of rest, he'll be 35 years old and still banging in 30+ goals per season.

Now wouldn't that be the stuff of legends?

Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't only listen to Zidane, he agrees with him and sees the complexity of having a team where most of the 20 main players want to play all the time, he has said that the key of Real Madrids victories has been Zidane himself.

20:36 - 20:50 "Zidane has done a very intelligent job, I already admired him as a player, and now I admire him even more as a coach"

I created a topic refering to the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo has the best odds to score in the Final and in case he does he will become the only player that has scored in 3 Champions League Finals, Sergio Ramos has the chance to achieve that record as well.

29 games in La Liga - 25 goals. People got spoiled expecting him to score 30+ goals every year I think but this is a great record for the season
12 games in Champions League - 10 goals. He has scored 10 goals in Europe in the last 6 seasons.

A bit hard to point out where he has failed to deliver this season, but there is still 1 game left.

If you watch RM and understand football you will know why this man is the best footballer year in and out even at 32 he is still killing it.
Won us la liga, got us to the final even if we don't win he still did his job. BD winner here for sure.