Free Kick Conversion - Messi vs Ronaldo Free Kick Conversion Rates

Messi & Ronaldo Free Kick Conversion Rates

Free kick goals only tell half the story - to really understand who the better free kick taker is, you need to know how many attempts it took to score them.

In total, Messi has scored 76 free kick goals and Ronaldo has scored 65, but the numbers on this page are lower because we're only including games we have free kick attempts data for. Messi scored 4 free kicks in the 141 games we don't have attempts data for, and Ronaldo scored 10 in 210 games.

We don't have free kick attempts data for every single match of Messi and Ronaldo's careers, but we do have it for a lot of them - including every league season of their careers (with the exception of Ronaldo's single league season at Sporting, where he didn't score a league free kick), every Champions League game and every World Cup game.

The "All Tracked Games" totals include every game we have free kick attempts data for. Competitions where we only have partial data are marked in the tables below.

Across every game we have free kick attempts data for, Messi has scored 72 free kicks from 872 attempts (8.3%), whereas Ronaldo has scored 55 free kicks from 966 attempts (5.7%).

In the league alone, Messi has converted 9.3% of his free kick shots, with Ronaldo converting 6.4%.

For a full breakdown of their free kick goals, see our free kick stats page.

Messi Free Kick Conversion by Competition

Ronaldo Free Kick Conversion by Competition

League Free Kick Attempts Before & After 2014/15

Interestingly, Messi now takes significantly more free kicks than he used to, whilst Cristiano is actually taking considerably fewer shots from free kicks than earlier in his career.

Before the 2014/15 season, Messi took 136 shots from direct free kicks in 10 La Liga seasons - an average of just 14 per season. Since then however, he has taken 402 shots at goal from free kicks, averaging 31 attempts per season.

In contrast, Ronaldo hit 382 free kick shots in 11 seasons before 2014/15 in the league (not including his season at Sporting) - an average of 35 per season. But since then he's taken 229 shots at goal from free kicks, averaging 18 attempts per season. This is 173 fewer free kick shots than Messi has attempted in the same period.

• Before 2014/15: Messi 136 free kick shots (14 per season on average)
• Before 2014/15: Ronaldo 382 free kick shots (35 per season on average)
• After 2014/15: Messi 402 free kick shots (31 per season on average)
• After 2014/15: Ronaldo 229 free kick shots (18 per season on average)

Despite this, Messi boasts a considerably better success rate, scoring 9.7% of his free kick shots in the league since 2014/15, with Ronaldo scoring 5.2% of his free kick attempts in the league since 2014/15.

Before 2014/15, Messi scored 8.1% of his free kick attempts (11 from 136), whereas Ronaldo scored 7.1% of his free kick shots (27 of 382).

Overall, in all league seasons played (excluding Ronaldo's season at Sporting), Messi has converted 9.3% of his free kick shots, whereas Ronaldo has converted 6.4% of his free kick shots.