He's been just amazing to watch recently. I mean, people will always make excuses for his performances (e.g. Messi still better, "If Messi wasn't injured, he would outscore Ronaldo", Ronaldo still only has 3 trophies with Madrid, still stuck on one Ballon d'Or, etc.). But since the start of this season, he's been on fire. 24 goals and 4 assists in 17 appearances show how good he is. He's scored as many league goals as Ibrahimovic and Messi combined. He's scored only one less goal than Edinson Cavani and Zlatan Ibrahimovic COMBINED.

Personally, I am pretty damn sure that Ribery is going to win the Ballon d'Or. But with Ronaldo's performances, he should surely beat Messi to 2nd place. In fact, I think that Ibrahimovic should be 3rd, and Messi 4th (Ballon d'Or will now have 5 finalists instead of 3, with 3 winning the Golden, Silver, and Bronze balls, and 2 of them not winning anything). But in terms of individual performances, Ronaldo surely tops this entire calendar year ahead of everyone.

Ronaldo has also scored 62 goals for club and country this calendar year, 17 more than Messi (who was injured for a bit of the season). But even without Messi's injury, it's hard to see Ronaldo NOT be ahead of him since 2013. His goal+assist per game record (1.57) is better than Messi's in 2013 (1.55). And what's more, he's never lost a game with Real Madrid in which he has found the back of the net (excluding that own goal against Granada, lol). With 225 goals, he is only behind Ferenc Puskas (242), Carlos Santillana (289), Alfredo Di Stefano (305), and Raul (323) in Madrid's scoring charts. He's scored more goals in 5 seasons than most Madrid players have in 10 years.

Carlo Ancelotti - "For me, the best player right now is Cristiano Ronaldo"

Arsene Wenger - "Messi was on top until now. But since last year, maybe Ronaldo is in front. He very athletic"

Luis Figo - "With his quality, what he stands for, and his performance in every game, he can always win the Ballon d'Or"

If the Ballon d'Or is going to be based on individual performances like it has been for the last couple years, then Ronaldo ought to win it. But if it will be based on team accomplishments as well as individual performances, then Ribery must surely be the winner.

Heck, if I knew Ronaldo would get so motivated by being criticized, I would pay Blatter money to publicly mock Ronaldo, so that the man can go on and score goal after goal.

@Tiki

Lol, I think you misunderstood. The "^" was indicating that my comment was directed at WayneRooney, not at you. My apologies if it seemed that way. Your comment was fine.

And sweet Jesus. I didn't know he broke that many records. O.O

well that picture from wayne rooney did not list any records ronaldo broke. and ronaldo still has more than a month to score more goals and break more records. also one thing most people dont take into an account is that ronaldo is a winger and messi is a striker.quite amazing to score that much from the wing

"#94 Lionel Messi became the first Barca player this century to score 18 penalties in La Liga at the Camp Nou"
"#88 Lionel Messi became the only player in the history of Barcelona to score 10 league goals against Málaga."
"#76 Lionel Messi became the only player in the history of Barcelona to score 12 league goals vs Atlético de Madrid at Camp Nou"
"#60 Lionel Messi became only the 2nd player in the history of Barcelona to score 7 goals vs Levante "
and more.
I don't know how about you guys, but these are for me just statistics, not any SPECIAL records.

@Dynastian i am definitely not a Ronaldo hater.. i just posted that some for fun lol and the fact that people were actually saying that when Messi won the award last year, they were surprised (I'm talking about the "Stupid" Ronaldo fans who don't watch anything but Ronaldo, and @Quikzyy scoring around 30 goals in 2 months would be a great challenge for Ronaldo.

I'm pretty sure this is not totally an individual award. and if it is not how is Ronaldo going to beat Ribery? Since Messi is injured, I'm pretty sure he is out of the competition for the award, so its just going to be Ronaldo and Ribery. but if it is individual then definitely Ronaldo.

This is definitely Ronaldo's best start to a season

dont hate me for this..

@Wayne but, the whole team won these awards, not just Ribery. I still think Ronaldo deserve ballon d'Or even he not won any trophy. Bayern don't depend on Ribery performances as much Real on Ronaldo's.

^yea Ronaldo does deserve a ballon d'Or

@tiki:

BVB: 4 games, 6 goals.
Barcelona: 4 games, 9 goals.

ZOMG RONALDO IS BETTER THAN BVB, AND ONLY ONE GOAL WORSE THAN BARCELONA!!!!

Oh wait.... BVB have had a group with Arsenal, Napoli and OM, whereas Ronaldo has had a group with Copenhagen and Galatassaray.

It's not a league 'excuse', mate. It's just reality.

@Lodatz

Lol, that's true. Gala and Copenhagen were easily brushed aside by us.

Galatasaray and Coppenhagen are actually better than OM, im an Om fan i can tell you something about that.
Seeing what did Juventus against those teams is prooving that his actual ratio, he can do it everywhere...
Manchester and Chelsea for example had the same group level and no scorer was near that ratio, you know my point about the topic, im not saying Ronaldo is better than a club, just that he can score this amount of goals everywhere....
If he was still in England, he may score a hattrick for example against Noewich or only 1 against Everton or 0 goal agaisnt Chelsea but im sure he will finish top scorer with +15 goals than the 2nd...
You will tell me its impossible to score in England..... but if you look Suarez actual ratio in EPL who is near his ratio when he was at ajax, you cannot deny that Ronaldo at his peak will be breaking records there too.
Why EPL players dont score Hattricks against weaker teams ? Because they are not as good, as motivated. The gap between Messi/Ronaldo and other players including EPL scorers is bigger than you think, and cannot just been explained by the weakness of some liga teams.

Guys let's get real, do any of you think ribery is better the ronaldo. This is the best player of the year we are talking about not most titles

@tiki:

If you say OM are crap, I won't argue with you; they are, however, the least of the 4 teams, the other 3 of which appear to be on a similar level, and one of which was in the CL final last year.

Compared to Gala and Copenhagen? Not really a contest.

United don't have a group like Madrid, at all. Sociedad, Shaktar and Leverkeusen are all miles ahead of Gala and Copenhagen. Why would you say otherwise? O.o I'm genuinely confused.

Anyways, no, I don't think Ronaldo can score 'this many goals' everywhere. Yes, he might pick up a hat-trick against Norwich, but, he would likely only get one or two hat-tricks in the whole season, compared to the four or five he seems to get every season in La Liga. You have to appreciate that we take defense a LOT more seriously over in the PL, and while a beast team like Madrid can afford to forget about defense and go all-attack against most of La Liga, they would not get away with it to the same degree as in England.

Ronaldo is, as an individual, better than any one player in the PL, and so is Messi. No-one has ever denied this, that I'm aware of. But we're also talking about two of the greatest players of their generation (and in Leo's case possibly the best of all time). Yes, they may be so far above everyone else, but, that does not however mean that the teams/defenses they play against are of the same quality that could be found elsewhere.

If Ronaldo went back to the PL, then sure, I can believe he would be the top scorer there. Probably get around 30-35 goals.

But he wouldn't be getting the 40+ that seems to characterize his time in Spain.

Same with Messi.

And if Suarez went to Spain, he'd be 3rd behind Messi and Ronaldo, with ease.

Ok, finally an agreement in this subject 35 goals is a good prediction considering there is more dificult games in England maybe 8 games more than la Liga (out of 38), im not deniying it too,but they would score in other games.
I have to agree with that. But i think it will be more +35, than 30 :) but they will score a little less than in La liga.
Anyway, i dont think we could have the chance to verify this prediction as i dont think they will move to England.

@lodatz if Suarez went to Spain at least 35+goals

@Wayne it will depend on his motivation to score that amount of goals...

@Lodatz

Well, Ronaldo actually only got over the 40 mark twice, so you're certainly right that he wouldn't score as many in the EPL, but would certainly be around the 30-35 mark.

@Tiki

You have to realize one thing, and that is that although the teams in the top 8 of La Liga know how to defend, the other teams are absolute garbage at defending. Their attacking is fabulous, but their defense is pathetic. Their only defensive tactic is parking the bus, and that's what they do every game against both Madrid and Barca (and now even against Atletico).

EPL teams, no matter how low into the league, mostly know the means of putting a man between the ball and the net. We can say that Madrid would still probably win the EPL if they were in it, but probably won't get the 90+ points average. More like 70-90 points (depending on their consistency). I mean, there's always examples of crap defending in the EPL (United vs. City, Norwich vs. City), but the only teams in La Liga that really know how to defend are Atletico and Valencia.

To me if ronaldo and messi went back to England the same year I think ronaldo would score more goals than messi the first season just because it is a more physical league and ronaldo has played in it before I don't think messi would be used to all the hard tackles and stuff.

@charlie ofc. I can't imagine Messi in EPL vs team like Stoke, they would probably break his body with their style of play. EPL is much more about physical contact.

@Dynast: I don't think Madrid would "probably" win the PL at all. They'd be a contender, sure, but that's all.