There is more to football than stats.
They're obviously important but I do agree with you somewhat. Reeling off a bunch of stats and not much else doesn't really do all that much, not least because who is better is subjective anyway. Else Josef Bican would be the greatest player ever, no debate.
As it is, there's numerous arguments for either (injuries and hypothyroidism have been mentioned but I would also say the game has changed from even 20 years ago and Ronaldo would be more suited today to teams like Barcelona and Bayern Munich, the type of team who I think he'd be playing for although that's all hypothetical) in this case (and it's only being done because they share the same name) no doubt Cristiano Ronaldo's numbers stack up better than Ronaldo. But I've always found the latter more special, more capable of destroying defences in any number of ways and more fun to watch. Cristiano Ronaldo (and moreso since he's become just a goalscorer which has made him less enjoyable to watch) leaves me a little cold, his clinicalness seems a little robotic. He seems to have become a great goalscorer and yeah, that's about it. It's easy to hide behind 'oh, he's a Manc and a bit of a twat' and that's the reason and he is and he is but that's not really it. Players like Ronaldo, Messi, Zidane have done it at the highest level, as has Cristiano Ronaldo but the former three play(ed) with magic, with some kind of ethereal brilliance that I wouldn't say Cristiano Ronaldo does. Of course, Ronaldo has the numbers but then if it's all about that, I wouldn't bother watching matches, I'd just look at Opta afterwards.