The traits that predict your GOAT

Of everything researchers measured — politics, personality, media habits — political ideology predicted the Messi-Ronaldo pick most strongly. Age, gender, education and income predicted nothing

Each person rated both players, and the score is their Ronaldo rating minus their Messi rating — so preferring Ronaldo gives a positive number (right), preferring Messi a negative one (left). That's all the plus and minus mean. Each dot shows how strongly a trait pulls that score toward one player; where the bar crosses the centre line, the effect is too weak to reliably predict either way.
Chart: Keero Adhnan AhmedSource: Nanyang Technological University (Ahmed et al., 2026)Get the dataCreated with Datawrapper