Inter Miami just won 5-1 against New York Red Bulls in the MLS. Lionel Messi contributed a double goal in the 60th and 75th minutes.
These two goals help the Argentine star officially surpass Ronaldo in the number of goals not including penalties - an index that is now used regularly to evaluate the true scoring efficiency of strikers.
Accordingly, Messi has scored 764 goals outside the penalty after 1114 matches in his career, just one goal more than Ronaldo. The Portuguese striker has scored 763 goals from live balls in a total of 1281 matches. If counting all goals, Ronaldo still leads history with 938 goals, while Messi is second with 874 goals.
The difference comes from Ronaldo scoring 175 goals from the 11m mark, with a success rate of 84% after 208 performances. Meanwhile, Messi has successfully kicked 110 penalty kicks in 141 times, reaching a rate of 78%.
Thanks to that, when eliminating penalty goals with a very high chance of success, Messi became the leader in the number of pure goals from live football.
The goal index excluding penalties is becoming one of the popular measures in the professional and media world. In an era where penalties are often awarded to players with a voice in the dressing room, this index helps to more objectively reflect the goalscorers' ability to score.
Since the 2022 World Cup, Messi has only scored two penalties and both were successful. The rest, the players now proactively give up the right to do things in unnecessary situations. Meanwhile, Ronaldo scored 33 goals, scoring 29 goals with an impressive efficiency of 88%.
Meanwhile, Messi has a statistical advantage when Ronaldo is on summer break with Al Nassr. Ronaldo and his teammates will return with the match against Al Ittihad in the semi-finals of the Saudi Arabian Super Cup on August 19.
Meanwhile, Inter Miami and Messi continue the MLS campaign with a clash with Cincinnati at 6:15 am on July 27 (Vietnam time).
