Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are aging like fine wine. There is no stopping the two greats of the game as they continue to score goals and shatter records. 35-year-old Messi recently scored another hat trick in his outing for Argentina against Curacao as he has now achieved 57 career hat tricks. On the other hand, Ronaldo scored his latest and 62nd hat trick a month ago in the Saudi Pro League for Al-Nassr against Damac.
However, how much better or worse are these players getting at scoring hat tricks as they age? The answer is very positive for Ronaldo but not so much for Messi.
Ronaldo reached the age of 30 on February 5, 2015. It has been eight years since then. Believe it or not, Ronaldo has scored the majority of his hat tricks after the age of 30. He has scored 32 hat tricks after reaching the age of 30. Before that, he scored 30 hat tricks.
30 hat-tricks before 30 and 30 hat-tricks after 30. It’s time to unbalance the scale! 💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/McgGZBmzyh
— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) April 17, 2022
Ronaldo even posted on social media when he scored his 30th hat trick after turning 30 years old. He said it was time to “unbalance the scale”. That is exactly what he did after scoring two hat tricks for his Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr.
Messi, on the other hand, has slowed down a bit. Before reaching the age of 30 on June 24, 2017, Messi scored 41 hat tricks. However, after turning 30 years old, Messi scored 16. It is important to note that it has been just five and a half years and 16 trebles in that time period is a massive number. It will be interesting to see the numbers they touch going forward.
Total career hat tricks scored by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi
Ronaldo (62) leads Messi (57) by 5 career hat tricks as of now. These numbers are bound to change soon because the two cannot stop scoring. According to messivsronaldoapp, on average, Messi scores a hat trick every 17.9 games and Ronaldo scores a hat trick every 18.7 games played.
Going further, Messi has scored more than three goals in a game eight times. He has scored four goals in a game an impressive six times and five goals in a game twice. On the other hand, Ronaldo beats Messi in these numbers as well. The Portuguese sporting icon has scored four goals in a game nine times and five goals twice.
Cristiano Ronaldo just scored his 9th Perfect Hattrick. Thats 9 more than Lionel Messi has in his entire Career (0).
— Albi 🇽🇰 (@albiFCB7) March 14, 2021
Ronaldo has scored an incredible amount of “perfect” hat-tricks (1 right-foot goal, 1 left-foot goal, and 1 headed goal). The Al-Nassr star has nine of those to his name. But, considering Messi has rarely scored headed goals, it is no surprise that he has no perfect hat tricks to his name.