The debate over the greatness of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi has long been considered endless. However, when looking solely at their performances in away matches, Messi has struggled to keep up with his Portuguese counterpart.

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Indeed, according to statistics, over his illustrious career, Ronaldo has played a total of 950 away matches and scored 385 goals, averaging 0.4 goals per game. Meanwhile, Messi has found the net 331 times in 891 away appearances, averaging 0.37 goals per game.

At 40 years old, Ronaldo has yet to retire, and he is even aiming to reach the milestone of 1,000 goals. Having already scored 953 times, CR7 still needs to find the back of the net 47 more times to fulfill this ambitious target.

Meanwhile, Messi, who is two years younger than the former Real Madrid striker now playing for Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia, has “only” scored 894 goals. He trails Ronaldo by 59 goals, meaning he still needs over 100 more strikes to reach the 1,000-goal milestone.

Although he has scored fewer goals than Ronaldo and lags behind CR7 in away-game performance, Messi surpasses his greatest rival in playmaking ability. Having recently contributed a brace along with an assist in Inter Miami’s 4-0 rout of Nashville, the 1987-born Argentine has reached 400 career assists—a record no one else has come close to.

It’s also worth noting that Messi has scored 782 goals excluding penalties, while Ronaldo’s corresponding figure is 773. This highlights that Ronaldo has taken—and scored from—penalties far more frequently than the former Barcelona and PSG star.