No Ronaldo in an all-time top five, and ESPN UK's comments fill up

A short clip of one pundit's list drew more than a thousand comments in under a day, on a channel whose Shorts usually gather about a dozen.

Channel: ESPN UK Story of October 9, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 124,566 views a day, 23 times a normal first day on this channel (5,522).

Ronaldo DOESN’T MAKE the top 5 players of all time 😱

"Ronaldo DOESN'T MAKE the top 5 players of all time" is a Short from ESPN UK that does exactly what its title says. A pundit lists his five greatest players, and Cristiano Ronaldo is not among them. The title does not name the man doing the ranking. His list has given football's longest-running argument a new place to happen.

The clip passed 110,000 views in 19 hours, far beyond the channel's usual first day for a Short. The talk under it stands out even more. A new Short here normally collects comments in the low teens on its first day. This one had more than a thousand.

Much of that talk is not really about Ronaldo. Viewers argue over whether a World Cup should count when ranking a player. One popular reply notes that nearly everyone on the list led a winning team, and Johan Cruyff is the exception. Others say Marco van Basten always gets forgotten. Some post their own lists, limited to the players they actually saw. Another thread asks whether younger fans can fairly rank Pelé and Maradona at all.

Ronaldo was a busy subject on the channel that day. A second Short, about the risk of him "tarnishing his legacy," went up at the same time and drew a small part of the crowd. The same week, ESPN FC also previewed Messi's farewell with Argentina, as we reported here.

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The numbers

A clip that set off a comment section far busier than anything the channel's Shorts usually see.

the video's first day

usual first day here

5,522

this video

124,566

subscribers

1,600,000

no significant change in the last 7 days

total views

1,057,051,964

views per day

1,104,926

typical day: 970,151

the video

views

113,668

likes

1,491

comments

1,133

days online

1

subscribers: this channel and similar channels

The Overlap

1,790,000

adidas Football

1,680,000

ESPN UK

1,600,000

FOX Soccer

1,580,000

Overlap Daily

1,520,000

KickFlix

1,420,000

As of October 9, 2026 · Data source: Trari Social News, Trari Traffic Trends and Ranking Platform, Google YouTube

Subscriber, view, like and comment counts are YouTube's. Rates, usual days, rankings, comparisons and categories are Trari's own calculations.