Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are arguably among some of the greatest soccer players the world will ever see. Despite their extraordinary abilities, the two divide opinions among their fans regarding who amongst them merits the "greatest of all time" claim.

The rivalry extends to the popular EA Sports Fifa soccer console game, where the two have battled for the top-ranked player for the past decade. No other player has broken into the top two positions within that period.

Generally, the game makers assess a player's ability on six main criteria: speed, shooting, passing, defending, dribbling and physicality. A score on each of these criteria is assigned to every player, which is then used to calculate an overall rating out of 100.

Bayern’s Lewandowski breaks Messi-Ronaldo duopoly of EA Fifa top player rankings

pace

The two players have continuously shut out any player from the top two positions for nearly a decade

80

Overall rankings are based on the player ratings on selected attributes

physic

shooting

60

L. Messi

40

20

0

passing

defending

L. Messi

Cristiano Ronaldo

dribbling

pace

80

R. Lewandowski

60

physic

shooting

40

20

0

L. Messi

passing

defending

dribbling

pace

R. Lewandowski

80

60

physic

shooting

C. Ronaldo

40

M. Neuer

Neymar

A. Robben

20

0

passing

defending

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

dribbling

Throughout the period, Messi and Ronaldo all hit a top score of 94 at various points. However, the two players, obviously in the twilight of their careers, given their respective ages, 34 and 37, have seen their duopoly broken for the first time in a while.

Robert Lewandowski, who plays for German club Bayern Munich, became the second top-ranked player when EA Sports released the 2022 version of the popular game. Lewandowski came behind Messi as Ronaldo fell to number three.

The Polish player had a score of 92, while Messi, who moved to French-based club PSG at the start of the season, was given a score of 93. The third highest-ranked player, Ronaldo, who also returned to English club Manchester United, got a 91 score.