Claim: Google confirms that the majority of people in the world prefer Cristiano Ronaldo over Lionel Messi.
Conclusion: Misleading. There has been no official “poll” conducted by Google. The data cited is from Google Trends, which shows higher search volume/interest, not necessarily people’s preference.
Rating: Misleading — 
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A recent X post made on 22 July 2025 by a user ‘CristianoXtra’ asserted that “Google confirms that the majority of people in the world prefer Cristiano Ronaldo over Lionel Messi.” The post gained more than 2.7 million views drawing all the football fans.
The claim was supported by a world map coloring countries blue (Ronaldo) or red (Messi) to indicate preference. The map suggests a global preference for Ronaldo, with blue dominating most regions, while red (Messi) is concentrated in parts of South America and Africa.
Find the link to the post Here.
🚨BREAKING:
Google confirms that the majority of people in the world prefer Cristiano Ronaldo over Lionel Messi. pic.twitter.com/i5iVR7oCJM
— CristianoXtra (@CristianoXtra_) July 22, 2025
FACT CHECK
While the post stirred both support and disappointment among Ronaldo and Messi fans, it is not accurate. DigitEye India found no credible evidence or Google data in 2025 confirming any global preference poll ever conducted by the search engine.
We then decided to conduct a Google Trends search ourselves, comparing Lionel Messi to Cristiano Ronaldo. The category selected was ‘worldwide’ and the date was for Google Trends on 23 July 2025. Here is the result:
As shown in the image above, there have been more searches for Cristiano Ronaldo as opposed to Lionel Messi. However, this does not mean that all the countries marked in red are supporters of Ronaldo. Search volume indicates curiosity or random searches rather than genuine fanbase support.
To prove this, we looked at the Google Trends results from 1 December 2022 to 31 December 2022. The dates have been selected for a specific reason, considering Lionel Messi led Argentina to victory in the 2022 World Cup and lifted the trophy on 18 December 2022. Here are the results showing Messi dominating the map in blue while Ronaldo supporters are shown in red:
Thus, one can rule out that Google Trends does not necessarily reflect the preference of the fanbase of a respective player. The disconnect invalidates the original X post’s implication of the “majority” preference for Ronaldo.
Next, we searched the popularity of Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo in 2025 to locate a single winner. Nonetheless, we did not find any unbiased or impartial article that offered a single winner or claimed that the majority of the world prefers one over the other.
Here is a snippet from a report by the Times Of India titled “Who wins the GOAT debate in 2025? Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, John Cena or Lebron James”.
Yet again, the stance is neutral and no claims are made about the majority preference without credible evidence. Hence, the claim is misleading.
