The Spanish player that's making a fool of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been the undisputed stars of soccer for the past two decades. Their rivalry was mainly on display at their clubs, with Leo shining at Barcelona and CR7 doing the same at Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus. But they have also clashed on a few occasions in national team matches between Argentina and Portugal.

In their respective countries both are revered and have been very successful. Cristiano won a Euro Cup and a Nations League, while Messi won 5 titles: U-20 World Cup, gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Copa America, Finalissima and World Cup. In addition, both are the top scorers for their national teams: 104 goals scored by Leo in Argentina and 123 by Ronaldo in Portugal.

But one player from Spain is beating their records: Alvaro Morata. The Atlético Madrid striker netted a hat-trick last week in the 7-1 win over Georgia and reached 33 goals in his first 65 games for his national team. To put into perspective, in that same amount of games, Cristiano had scored 22 and Messi just 18.

Moreover, with these goals Morata is getting closer to other stars that stood out in the Spanish National Team in the past. He is only 2 behind the fourth all-time top scorer, David Silva, who scored 35. Above him are Fernando Torres (38) and Raul Gonzalez (44). To them maybe he can catch up in a short time, but he is still far away from the number 1, David Villa, who netted 59 goals between 2005 and 2017.

He has the chance to score more goals

The Spanish National Team will play this Tuesday afternoon its fourth match in the qualifiers for Euro 2024. It will be at the Los Carmenes stadium in Granada against Cyprus. Although coach Luis De La Fuente did not confirm it publicly, the starting lineup would be: Unai Simon; Dani Carvajal, Robin Le Normand, David Garcia, Alejandro Balde; Rodri, Mikel Merino, Fabian Ruiz; Yamine Lamal, Nico Williams and Alvaro Morata. The latter will have the chance to continue climbing among Spain's top scorers.