5 attributes in which Lionel Messi is better than Cristiano Ronaldo on FIFA 17

#2 Freekicks

Lionel Messi has made it a habit of scoring free-kicks, especially against Real Madrid

Once upon a time, Cristiano Ronaldo used to terrorise opposition goalkeepers from free-kicks, especially during his time as a flying winger in the red half of Manchester. The Portuguese has scored many a memorable free-kick, including that strike against Portsmouth which left then England stopper David James for dead. Another unforgettable free-kick was the 40-yard thunderbolt in the Champions League knockout rounds against Arsenal in the 2008/09 season where the Red Devils won the Champions League.

Barcelona’s little Argentinian, however, was not known for his dead ball abilities in his earlier days with the Catalan giants but has developed it over time with dead ball masters like Ronaldinho, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Villa mentoring him. Now a consistent threat from dead balls, Messi has been scoring all kinds of free-kicks – under the wall, the dipping kind, the knuckle ball and other techniques which guarantee the ball crossing the goal line.

EA Sports have rightly taken into account the Portuguese’s slowly fading free-kick abilities and given him a free-kick accuracy ranking of 76; it seems like it’s been ages since he scored one. Messi has been quite deadly with the dead ball in the last few years and maintains an unerring free-kick accuracy to receive a rating of 90.