Ballon d'Or, FIFA Best, Golden Boots — the individual race.

Each square is one year. Blue = Messi, red = Ronaldo, grey = someone else. Their longest combined streak ran from 2008 to 2017, taking ten of ten.

1. 2008
2. 2009
3. 2010
4. 2011
5. 2012
6. 2013
7. 2014
8. 2015
9. 2016
10. 2017
11. 2018
12. 2019
13. 2020
14. 2021
15. 2022
16. 2023
17. 2024
18. 2025
19. 2026

Beyond the Ballon d'Or

The Ballon d'Or is the most cited award, but it isn't the only one. The European Golden Shoe — handed annually to the top scorer across Europe's top leagues, weighted by difficulty — has been won six times by Messi and four by Ronaldo. The FIFA Best (and its predecessor, the FIFA World Player of the Year) sits one tier below the Ballon d'Or in prestige but is judged by a wider voting body: Messi has three of those, Ronaldo two. And then there is the World Cup Golden Ball — Messi has two (2014, 2022); Ronaldo has none.