383 goals in 372 games so impressive no matter how you break it down mate.
I don’t like him. I don’t like his style. I don’t like anything about him. I’ll take Ronaldo, Messi and mercurial greats like them all day everyday. They are better players with more exhilarating styles of play.
But CR7 is an all time great. The second best player of his generation. There’s just no way you could possibly take away from what he’s accomplished.
The fact that only two players reach does kind of numbers does make it special.
No doubt, but he’s hugely overrated in the last two seasons, at least. Giving him the Balón d’Or for the past season was kind of a joke.
No one is disputing that. I’d probably put him in a (serious) top 20, too. But I think there are very good points to be made that, given the performances of him and other players, he’d struggle to be in a current (!) top 10, let alone top 5.
Modric in everyone’s list, he is far from an exciting player to watch.
the God of Portugal comment was tongue in cheek.
I shouldn’t have to explain on a football forum why Ronaldo is a good player. 55 goals in 57 games in 2016. And that’s him not at his best and playing some games with a knee injury! He’s lost some of his speed but is still a relentless goal scorer. He still scores with both feet. He is still an aerial threat. Probably the best penalty box player in the world. I also think he has become more of a team player under Zidane in the last year.
Look I’m not even a Ronaldo fan and personally wouldn’t have awarded him the Ballon d’Or but he’s still a top top player so I think it’s perfectly understandable if people want to put him in their top 5.
Once again, who said he’s not a good player? I said I’d include him in my top 20, so obviously I think he’s still class. However, his main forté has always been his goalscoring and since that’s not that exeptional any more - given the performances of other players this season - I really don’t think there’s a case to be made for him to be a top 5 player. Personal opinion, of course. I see you rank him above Messi. Very interesting.
Also, could you give a source for that 55 goals in 2016? I even counted the 4 goals in the Club World Cup, 3 in friendlies and 3 against Hungary and Wales at the Euros, but I can’t get past 46. Is there some Chinese pre season tour somewhere that I missed?
Edit: Oh, I forgot WC qualifiers. 2 against Latvia, 1 against Faroer, 4 against Andorra. Still not quite 55, but close enough.
Do I? I specifically said I wasn’t sure of an order. As an all round player I’ve always been Messi > Ronaldo. I don’t know where exactly I’d position him, not 1st but yeah in the top 5.
Also:
And:
There are plenty of YouTube videos showing Ronaldo’s 55 goals of 2016 if you don’t believe me.
Why do you think 55 goals in 57 games isnt exceptional @CunningLinguist?
That’s a fairly staggering return tbh.
Start with the thread title (hint: “right now”), continue with what I wrote (hint: “[…] that’s not that exeptional any more - given the performances of other players this season -” ). I never wrote his goalscoring is not exceptional. I wrote that in the context of this season (!), where at least ten players across Europe have similar or better stats than him, it does not stand out anymore like it used to and that I personally would not rank him in the top 5, as his football in 16/17 simply does not merit it. And this is, again, only referring to goalscoring, leaving out for example some of the staggering displays of midfield goodness (specifically Kroos and Thiago) that we’ve witnessed this season. Heck, even Real fans are criticising him these days for being wasteful and ineffective (which is hyperbole, I think, but still), it’s rather obvious he’s not been a top 5 player in 16/17 so far.
You’ll undoubtedly proceed to tell me how condescending I am. I’m fine with that.
What we can probably agree upon is that I’ve posted way too much already on the topic of Cristiano fucking Ronaldo
and that this is entirely @AbouCuellar’s fault for creating this bloody thread. 
Thanks for clarifying. You condescending fuck. 
Edit: and no actually i don’t think we discuss Ronaldo enough, especially not objectively. It tends to just be an extreme bias one way or the other which i can’t make much sense out of. Nice to have a little balance.
Fine, if we’re going to take the thread title literally and name the best players right this damn second, i want to put Podolski at number 1. 5 goals in his last game. World class form, that 
Didn’t see another thread but here’s my BBC ballon d’Or nominee ranking.
Was Varane really that impressive to get on there? Anyways.
I like all pro-Eboue posts.
Varane was absolutely insane during the WC. Have to go back to some Italian more than a decade ago to find a centre-back that had as good of a world cup imo. Also had a great season with RM, fewer mistakes than last season, but I’m guessing the WC performance was the difference.
Thought he was pretty poor for RM this season tbh, made Ramos look like the less dodgy one which is some feat imo.but I’ll take your word for it about his WC performances, I wasn’t really paying attention.
I think they tend to put quite a heavy weight on the players’ WC performance. Say France went out in the grps I’m not sure Varane would be on there, because while I think his season with RM has been great I doubt he’s been the most remarkable CB in the world in 17/18 and the only one to make the list.
Messi finally gets what he deserves
Hasn’t he won similar awards lots of other times?
