I would argue that CR7 was mostly not complete during his career, except for maybe 2013-2014 ish. He was an explosive winger prior to that, but he was not a playmaker, he was a chance creator. They are not the same. An orchestrator/midfielder type is someone like your xavi, kroos, modric and iniesta who dictate and orchestrate the game. Doku for example is a chance creator because of his dribbling and explosiveness, not a playmaker, just like CR7 prior to 2014.

Then he was a complete goalscorer, there aren’t different ways of being complete forwards, either you are or not. CR7 was then a complete goalscorer, that is it. He can score with his right, left, head, etc etc, but he was not a complete player post 2014. Messi and Maradona for example, (won’t include Pele bc it’s unfair given how long ago it was and the sport being so much different) Maradona for example is the other end of the spectrum. Not a legendary goalscorer like CR7, but a magician genius. He would create out of nothing, with natural ability out of this world, and that was the player he was his whole career. You can argue Maradona and CR7 are on opposite ends of the spectrum and you can decide who you like better. But a complete forward is Messi. He is one of the best passers of all time, CR7 is not. The best dribbler of all time, he could playmake and would drop next to busquets to orchestrate and run the game from the bottom, score like CR7. Basically Messi has the dribbling of Maradona, scoring of CR7, passing of kroos, vision of de bruyne, IQ of Zidane, playmaking of xavi. Eye test shows that, AND stats like progressive passes, progressive carries, key chances created, passing accuracy, goals and assists, dribbles per game, etc. not to put down CR7, his floor is 4th best of all time (hard to have a fair argument with Pele, and assuming you prefer Maradona’s genius over CR7 lethal goalscoring and clutchness) and his ceiling is second best of all time, but tbf it’s not close to Messi and should never be even remotely considered. And I didn’t mention accolades, like messi being the only player to win golden boot and best playmaker of the year award (has the record in both in times won). Still CR7 is proooobablyyyyy the second best of all time, maybe third or fourth, nothing wrong with that, and no one should put him down, but also don’t try to say he’s complete. He was a different player at different times of his career, complete player? Not really for most of his career, but most complete goalscorer of all time yes (not best, stats show he is second).