A comprehensive thread on why Cristiano Ronaldo is the GOAT
(Likes and Rts appreciated)

I will compare him with Pele, Maradona and Messi as they are his biggest rivals.

Let's start with Pele.
Reasons why Pele is considered a GOAT candidate:-
(1) He scored 757 goals
(2) He won 3 World Ups

1)
For club he scored 670, 77 goals came from NT. He played for 2 clubs, Santos and NY Cosmos. Most of his club goals came from Santos which played in Brazilian league. The standard of the teams was low and Pele's team dominated them. You can see. That's Brazilian Juventus btw.

You can barely name good defenders from that era who played in Brazilian league. His statpadding puts even Messi's statpadding to shame as you can see above.

2)
Pele has scored 77 goals for Brazilian NT and is their all time leading topscorer. He won WC in 1958, 1962 and 1970. Brazilian NT at that time was filled with great players. In 2/3 of those triumphs he got heavily carried. He should be credited only for 1958 WC

In 1958 WC, he was 2nd topscorer with 6 goals. That's 7 less than topscorer and 1 more than his teammate Vavá.

In 1962 WC, he was mostly injured. He scored 1 goal in whole tournament. Garrincha and Vavá carried Brazil with 4 goals each.

In 1970 WC, he scored 4 goals. Jairzinho carried Brazil to the WC trophy with 7 goals.
The funny part is that only 16 teams played the WC in his era.

Now compare him with Cristiano in the same categories
(1) Ronaldo has scored 725 goals
(2) he has won 2 international trophies

For club Cristiano has scored 626 goals. He has played for Sporting CP, Man United, Real Madrid and Juventus in 3 of the top 5 European leagues.

In Champions League which is considered the most elite club competition, he is topscorer and top assist provider. He literally has every record in UCL.

In international football Ronaldo has 99 goals and he is the 2nd all-time topscorer. Ronaldo also has 2 international trophies those are Euro and UNL.

Euro:He is all-time leading topscorer in the competition. In Euro 2016 he carried Portugal to their first international trophy by contributing in 6 of the 9 goals scored by Portugal. This feat seems even greater when you realise that his team was quite average. 24 teams played..

UNL: He played 2 matches and sent Portugal to the final with a hattrick. With 3 goals he was the topscorer of Portugal.

It's Clear that Cristiano > Pele

Now let's talk about Diego Maradona.
He is considered GOAT candidate because:-

1) Carried a weak team like Napoli to two Serie A titles.
2) He won a WC with an average Argentina.

Maradona played mainly for Barcelona and Napoli in Europe. Before he joined Napoli they were on the verge of Relegation. He joined they won 2 league titles, he left they haven't won the league even once. That is quite big achievement.

Although it is a great achievement, but it is not comparable to what Cristiano did in club football. For Example Cristiano won UCLs 5 times and Maradona never did. And not only Cristiano won these titles, he carried his team, scoring an average of 13.6 goals in those campaigns.

On international level Maradona carried Argentina to a WC, which is a greater achievement than Ronaldo carrying Portugal to Euro. But Ronaldo covers that up with way better international stats. And keep in mind that both WC and Euro had 24 teams when they won them. "Hand Of God"

Diego Maradona's play style was eye pleasing but Cristiano is clearly greater.

Finally let's come to Messi
Messi's arguments
1) Individual awards
2) Better career goal ratio
3) He is a better playmaker(Dribbling, passing and assisting)

1) Individual awards
Messi:- 6 Bd'Or awards, 6 golden boots, 2 UEFA POTY, 1 The Best FIFA Men's Player, 1 FIFA world POTY
Total - 16
Ronaldo:- 5 Bd'Or awards, 4 golden boots, 3 UEFA POTY, 2 The Best FIFA Men's Player, 1 FIFA world POTY
Total - 15

When you talk about these individual awards, except golden boot all the awards are based on votes which may be biased, for example Ronaldo was robbed of a Ballon d'Or in 2018
Proof: https://twitter.com/NatashaRaheel/status/1069732081410945025?s=20

If you talk about golden boots. It is decided on the basis of league goals and it doesn't necessarily mean good goalscoring. For example if A scored 20 goals in 30 games and B scored 19 goals in 18 matches. Golden boot will be given to A.

Now let's come to goal ratio.
The only reason why Messi's career goal ratio is greater than that of Ronaldo is because Ronaldo played as a right midfielder in the toughest league for 5 years. That's why Messi scored his first UCL goal before CR7 and was ahead of him until 2015.

Messi has always been in La Liga for all his career and in La Liga Ronaldo has scored 311 goals in 292 games. If Ronaldo played all his life for Real Madrid he would have scored 900+ goals by now.

The only area where Messi is better is Playmaking. Although Man United CR7 was a great playmaker.

On top of all that CR7 has these advantages over Messi
He is better goalscorer.
He is not a system player.
He has won for his country.
He is much better in UCL which is the best club competition.
He is much more compete forward, left foot, right foot, head...
Ronaldo > Messi

In conclusion
Ronaldo > Messi, Maradona, Pele.

Ronaldo = GOAT