We all know that Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t take failure or criticism well.

So he should probably avoid looking a the most recent report from the Centro de Investigaciones de Historia y Estadística del Fútbol Español (CIHEFE).

That’s the Centre of Historical and Statistical Investigations of Spanish Football for those of you with A Level Spanish and above.
Because after crunching the numbers including minutes played by season, goals scored in open play, penalties and own goals as well as sending-offs by every La Liga player EVER, chief statto José Antonio Ortega has deemed the Real Madrid star not the greatest ever player to grace the Spanish top division.

And he’s not second either. Or third. Or Fourth. Or even 10th.

He’s not even 15th.

Behind Raul, who is second, former Barcelona player Cesar Rodriguez in third, Athletic Bilbao legend Telmo Zarra fourth and Enrique Castro “Quini”, who played for Sporting Gijón and Barcelona between 1968 and 1987, who comes in fifth.

That’s despite 285 goals in 265 league games since arriving from Manchester United in 2009.

Top of the list? It’s Lionel Messi of course.

He simply said: “All of the evaluations are tallied with a scoring system that is simple and homogeneous that evaluates the footballers with the same analysis across all seasons.”

He added that Messi “has the technique, ambition, talent and ability”.

The study took into evaluation 9,280, who have taken part since the league began almost 90 years ago. After all the points were totted up, Messi headed the pile with 545 points with Raul on 528, Caesar 524, Zarra 493 and Quini on 488. Ronaldo was 17th with 415.

Culled from Mirror