Cristiano Ronaldo's Claim The Golden Shoe Is Better Than The Ballon d'Or Has Come Back To Haunt Him

On Wednesday Lionel Messi picked up his European Golden Shoe award from last season and Cristiano Ronaldo might be ruing the day he said it was the 'best award.'

Last season Messi scored 36 goals, leaving him on 72 points because of the difficulty of La Liga, and topped Europe's goal scoring charts, beating Kylian Mbappe by three goals, or six points.

The win meant the Barcelona forward captured his third Golden Shoe in-a-row and sixth overall, which will certainly hurt rival Ronaldo. Back in 2015 Ronaldo, who was winning his fourth shoe to Messi's three at the time, claimed it was the biggest award in football.

Speaking to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf the Juventus forward said, "The competition for the Golden Shoe also comes from other leagues.

"I really love this award. It is the best award out there for me. Others can pick you as the best player, but an attacker's job is to make goals and I love that. I cannot deny that I love scoring goals."

The claim seems pretty dismissive of the Ballon d'Or, and FIFA The Best award that didn't start until 2017, saying that being voted best player isn't as good as scoring goals.

At the time of the statement Ronaldo was ahead on Golden Shoe awards and behind his rival on Ballon d'Ors but things have since changed.

Messi won one more Ballon d'Or and the Juventus forward picked up two more, whilst the Barca man has won three Golden Shoes.

That means the 32-year-old is now level with his rival on five Ballon d'Ors each but as far as goal scoring is concerned he leads 6-4, and the Argentinian is the joint oldest player to have won the scoring award, level with Eusebio.

Earlier this year Messi won The Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award for the first time although with the year Virgil van Dijk has had he is far from guaranteed to go back ahead in terms of Ballon d'Ors won.

Ronaldo certainly isn't going to be happy finding out that by his own admission he isn't the best player. There's a good chance he's changed his mind about what the best award is, it's probably Serie A Player of the Year now...

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Topics: Football News, Barcelona, Serie A, Lionel Messi, Ballon d'Or, Juventus, Spain, The Best, Cristiano Ronaldo, La Liga, Italy

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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