Cristiano Ronaldo Once Picked This Award Over the Ballon d'Or, And His Reason Says Everything
Cristiano Ronaldo won 5 Ballon d'Or awards and 4 European Golden Shoes during his career. In 2015, he said the Golden Shoe was more important to him because scoring goals was an attacker's main job. Ronaldo later stopped at 4 Golden Shoes, while Lionel Messi won 6, alongside his record.
In the modern era, the Ballon d'Or is widely regarded as football's biggest individual prize, but Cristiano Ronaldo once revealed that another award meant more to him. Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or 5 times, with his first coming in 2008 while at Manchester United before adding victories in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017 with Real Madrid. In October 2015, Ronaldo explained that he personally valued the European Golden Shoe more highly.
His reasoning was simple: as a forward, he believed scoring goals was the main part of his job. At that point, Ronaldo had won the Golden Shoe 4 times, including the 2014/15 award after finishing as Europe's top league scorer. The Portuguese star had 4 Golden Shoes compared with Lionel Messi's 3 when he made those comments. However, Messi later moved ahead, eventually collecting 6 Golden Shoes.
Messi also holds the record for Ballon d'Or victories with 8, while Ronaldo finished with 5. Luis Suarez won the 2015/16 Golden Shoe after scoring 40 league goals for Barcelona. Ronaldo never won the award again, while Messi added 3 more to his collection. The figures now stand at 6 Golden Shoes for Messi and 4 for Ronaldo, despite Ronaldo's 5 Ballon d'Or wins.