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Individual awards

Messi vs Ronaldo: Ballon d'Or, FIFA Best and the individual race.

From 2008 through 2017, every Ballon d'Or in the world belonged to one of these two men. Across the whole post-2007 era, they have shared 13 of the 19 trophies.

Messi

8

Ballon d'Or wins

  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2015
  • 2019
  • 2021
  • 2023

Ronaldo

5

Ballon d'Or wins

  • 2008
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2016
  • 2017

Two decades of the Ballon d'Or

2008 – 2026

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

Individual awards, head to head

All categories
8Ballon d'Or53The Best FIFA Men's Player26European Golden Shoe43UEFA Men's Player of the Year32FIFA World Cup Golden Ball06Champions League top scorer7

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.

Thirteen awards, and the decade nobody else could win one

Messi has won the Ballon d'Or 8 times and Ronaldo 5. Between 2007 and 2024 the award was presented 17 times — 2020 was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic — so the two of them hold 13 of 17. The four that went elsewhere went to Kaká in 2007, Luka Modrić in 2018 and then, after the pair had left Europe, Karim Benzema in 2022 and Rodri in 2024.

The run that matters is 2008 to 2017: ten consecutive editions in which the winner was one of the two — Ronaldo in 2008, Messi in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, Ronaldo in 2013 and 2014, Messi in 2015, Ronaldo in 2016 and 2017. No other player won a Ballon d'Or for a decade. In nine of those ten the other man finished second; the exception is 2010, when Iniesta was second and Xavi third, with Ronaldo sixth.

They shared the podium in 11 separate years, every one between 2007 and 2017 except 2010 and 2018, plus 2019. Messi has 14 top-three finishes to Ronaldo's 12, counted from the same table.

The ends of the two award careers look very different. Messi won in 2019, 2021 and again in 2023 — the last one as an Inter Miami player, after the World Cup, extending his own record to eight. Ronaldo's last win was 2017; by 2023 he was not shortlisted for the first time since 2003, and in 2024 neither man made the 30-man shortlist at all. Messi also leads on The Best FIFA Men's Player, 3 to 2, and on the European Golden Shoe, 6 to 4, while they are level on UEFA Men's Player of the Year at 3 each.

Every edition from 2007 onwards, with where each man finished, is tabulated on awards by year. The seasons that won the awards are on goals per game, the team honours that accompanied them on trophies, and the other all-time marks each man holds on records.