Messi vs Ronaldo in 2022: the world cup year.

Messi scored 31 goals in 2022 and won the World Cup, which is the clearest illustration in the dataset of why calendar-year totals are a poor measure of a year. He out-scored Ronaldo 31 to 24 — Ronaldo's 19th-best year — and their combined 55 is the 4th-lowest of the 22 years on record.

On 18 December, Argentina beat France on penalties after a 3–3 final in Qatar that is widely held to be the best World Cup final ever played. Messi scored twice in the match — the first a penalty on 23 minutes — and then took and scored Argentina's first kick of the shootout. He collected his second Golden Ball. Six months earlier he had won the Finalissima 3–0 against Italy at Wembley, so 2022 brought him two of his four senior international trophies.

His tournament had begun badly: a penalty scored in the opener against Saudi Arabia that Argentina then lost 2–1, after which they had to win every remaining match. Ronaldo's ended quietly — dropped from the starting XI for the round of 16 against Switzerland, brought on, and never took a kick.

Neither made the Ballon d'Or top ten; Karim Benzema won it. Messi's own summary afterwards was "I always said I'd give up everything to win one of these. Now I have it, the rest doesn't matter." Ronaldo's public message called it "a career-defining trophy for a great champion who deserves it." Xavi Hernández, who played with Messi for over a decade, said of the whole era: "We will not see it again in our lifetimes."