Messi v Ronaldo | Contains double your daily salt allowance

Messi or Ronaldo

  • Messi

  • Ronaldo

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Peyroteo said:
I think Barcelona have a better squad than Juve because they do and are superior in pretty much every position.
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Peyroteo said:
Juve are much more compact though and they're built for the Champions League in a way Barcelona aren't.
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these two parts are key for me. for me, Barca have the right players for certain type of football that just doesn't work in CL. they're better equipped to destroy lesser clubs so it looks like they're going to do the same to everyone but it obviously never happens because it just doesn't work like that. Juve won't put 4 or 5 past Sampdoria or Torino every week but I'd back them to get result in CL before Barca every time. same goes for Atletico. that's not even my opinion, that's what have been happening in CL for the last couple of years and that's where they're going to meet most likely, in final.

like I've said couple of months ago, City have the best squad in Europe overall but Juve and Barca have the only two players they aren't able to sign. so yeah, I think they're on the same level more or less, each team with different weaknesses and strenghts. there's so little between them it's not even worth debating.
 
Bole Top said:
these two parts are key for me. for me, Barca have the right players for certain type of football that just doesn't work in CL. they're better equipped to destroy lesser clubs so it looks like they're going to do the same to everyone but it obviously never happens because it just doesn't work like that. Juve won't put 4 or 5 past Sampdoria or Torino every week but I'd back them to get result in CL before Barca every time. same goes for Atletico. that's not even my opinion, that's what have been happening in CL for the last couple of years and that's where they're going to meet most likely, in final.

like I've said couple of months ago, City have the best squad in Europe overall but Juve and Barca have the only two players they aren't able to sign. so yeah, I think they're on the same level more or less, each team with different weaknesses and strenghts. there's so little between them it's not even worth debating.
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This year I'm not sure but for the past years I'd give Atletico better odds than I'd give to Barca in a competition like the Champions League, does not in any way mean their squads were of similar quality though. Barcelona clearly had the better squad. And winning with Barcelona would be less impressive than winning with Atletico. It would be completely nonsensical to say the opposite.

Ter Stegen > Szczesny
Cancelo > Sergi Roberto
Pique > Bonucci
Chiellini > Umtiti
Alba > Alex Sandro
Busquets > Pjanic
Rakitic > Emre Can
Arthur > Matuidi
Messi > Dybala
Ronaldo > Dembele
Suarez > Mandzukic

Do you disagree with any of that? Only ones I believe are even arguable are Busquets-Pjanic and Chiellini-Umtiti. How can there be any argument over who's playing for the better team?
 
Zehner said:
After all that doesn't matter. Either doing it abroad is something that enhances your career or it doesn't. Even if you say it is only decisive when two individuals are effectively on eyesight regarding their career success it should generally be applied to every comparison not only a selective few. We also didn't only talk about SAF but also about players like Ferdinand, Scholes and so forth.

Anyway, SAF and Guardiola have both won two CLs with their domestic clubs. Guardiola however has proved himself in other leagues, too, so you could already argue that he has already surpassed SAF according to your criteria. I mean, okay, SAF has won more titles but Pep has done it in different countries, right? Especially since there's no difference in international titles?
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I think you miss my whole point. Fergie has won 50 trophies during his career, Guardiola only has 25. Of course Fergie is much better. It is not even comparable.

The only reason I bring up this "done in different teams/countries" argument, is when 2 players are almost identical/comparable in number of trophies/success/stats/personal honours they have had over their career, which is of course very rare.

In terms of greatness, achievement/success always comes first. But if their achievement/success are identical/comparable, then naturally we will be more impressed by the one who has done it in harder way.
 
Lynty said:
They're equal in my eyes. Too hard to compare them. I dislike judging players by stats and trophies. There's too many variables.

I consider myself a good player. Everything I can do on a football pitch, Ronadlo has complete mastery over. But watching Messi, sometimes I just shake my head in disbelief, knowing I could never do/see the things he does.

But in 10 years time, a kid is going to come along with the right phyiscal attributes, attitude and guidance, who surpasses Ronaldo. He'll be faster, stronger, more clinical. It'll be a lot longer before we see anyone change the game like Messi has.
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Aside from Messi (and Pele), there's almost no one in history of football managed to maintain to be top 1 or 2 players in the world for 11-12 consecutive years like Ronaldo did, winning almost everything in sight. What makes you think in 10 years time some unknown kid can surpasses that?
 
Ronaldo is a great goal scorer but he's not close to Messi as footballer. Messi is the primary playmaker and goal scorer. The amount of key dribbles and passes he makes per game is nothing like we've ever seen.
I still find it hard to believe this is a real conversation.
 
Future generations will have hours worth of Youtube clips to make their decisions. Cristiano trophy cabinet might look more appealing to future generations but video footage will show Messi clearly had more ability.

Its hard for someone like me to judge the likes of Eusebio, Pele, Best, Cruyff etc because I can't deduce much from a grainy 6 minute highlight reel. There will be so much contextual footage for Messi and Ronaldo that it will be much easier for people who didn't watch them to make reasonable judgements.
 
Peyroteo said:
What about all of the rest? It's easy to say a player is better than another when you disregard everything he's not better at.
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Cal? said:
The Barca fans is clearly far more objective on this subject. :rolleyes:
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well the fact that its a man utd post and its 50 : 50 shows clearly who people believe is better.

If you break down the stats and be honest about it:
Ronaldo is on par in goals scored. Is better in the air 100%, but he is not better in any other department in the game of which there are many. Im not anti ronaldo, he is a great striker but that is what he is. Maybe he will go down as the greatest ever striker and you could argue the point but to be the greatest player you need more than goals and he doesnt come close to Messi in anything else.

Passing, vision, assists, team play, freekicks, dribbles, close control, awareness etc etc etc
 
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Peyroteo said:
Do you disagree with any of that? Only ones I believe are even arguable are Busquets-Pjanic and Chiellini-Umtiti. How can there be any argument over who's playing for the better team?
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if you put it that way, no. football doesn't work like that though. it's a clash of styles and team management, the same way it's a clash of physical and technical skill. otherwise Atletico would never stand a chance against Barca or Madrid or Bayern. in their full flow and Messi having his usual game, Barca can probably wipe the floor with current Juve, but when they're prepared and motivated like they were against Atletico, Juve can beat Barca just as easy.
 
El Jefe said:
Future generations will have hours worth of Youtube clips to make their decisions. Cristiano trophy cabinet might look more appealing to future generations but video footage will show Messi clearly had more ability.

Its hard for someone like me to judge the likes of Eusebio, Pele, Best, Cruyff etc because I can't deduce much from a grainy 6 minute highlight reel. There will be so much contextual footage for Messi and Ronaldo that it will be much easier for people who didn't watch them to make reasonable judgements.
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Ability is not everything. Its amazing how people still use that to justify that as a reason for being a greater player. In ANY sport you will see examples of that. The most talented player is not always the best. LeBron James has bags of more natural and physical ability than Michael Jordan but who is the GOAT? In football there are many more talented quarterbacks through the years but who is the goat? Brady. INTANGIBLES are just as important especially when discussing greatness.
 
Jagga7 said:
Ronaldo is a great goal scorer but he's not close to Messi as footballer. Messi is the primary playmaker and goal scorer. The amount of key dribbles and passes he makes per game is nothing like we've ever seen.
I still find it hard to believe this is a real conversation.
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Because talent in the Sport is not everything and Messi has not been the best player in the world since 2013.
 
Paddy1983 said:
well the fact that its a man utd post and its 50 : 50 shows clearly who people believe is better.

If you break down the stats and be honest about it:
Ronaldo is on par in goals scored. Is better in the air 100%, but he is not better in any other department in the game of which there are many. Im not anti ronaldo, he is a great striker but that is what he is. Maybe he will go down as the greatest ever striker and you could argue the point but to be the greatest player you need more than goals and he doesnt come close to Messi in anything else.

Passing, vision, assists, team play, freekicks, dribbles, close control, awareness etc etc etc
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What about all of the rest? Completely ignoring the facets of the game Ronaldo is better at while only focusing on the facets of the game Messi's better at will lead to an obvious conclusion. No shit.

Also, Ronaldo is anything but a striker.
 
Paddy1983 said:
well the fact that its a man utd post and its 50 : 50 shows clearly who people believe is better.

If you break down the stats and be honest about it:
Ronaldo is on par in goals scored. Is better in the air 100%, but he is not better in any other department in the game of which there are many. Im not anti ronaldo, he is a great striker but that is what he is. Maybe he will go down as the greatest ever striker and you could argue the point but to be the greatest player you need more than goals and he doesnt come close to Messi in anything else.

Passing, vision, assists, team play, freekicks, dribbles, close control, awareness etc etc etc
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The fact is that this has been locked for ages to save face for Messi, Ronaldo was quite far back a few years ago and caught up.

It’s not about what they can or can’t do, it’s about when they do. Ronaldo delivers much more consistently on the biggest stage.
 
RedRonaldo said:
I think you miss my whole point. Fergie has won 50 trophies during his career, Guardiola only has 25. Of course Fergie is much better. It is not even comparable.

The only reason I bring up this "done in different teams/countries" argument, is when 2 players are almost identical/comparable in number of trophies/success/stats/personal honours they have had over their career, which is of course very rare.

In terms of greatness, achievement/success always comes first. But if their achievement/success are identical/comparable, then naturally we will be more impressed by the one who has done it in harder way.
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I fully understand your point. If you want to, you can also compare other players in similar positions with Scholes/Ferdinand/whoever. When you already play in the best league in the world, what does it prove if you move into an inferior league?

Those things have nothing to do with actual football. The fact that these points are consistently made says more about the actual discussion than these arguments say about who's the better football player.
 
Cal? said:
The fact is that this has been locked for ages to save face for Messi, Ronaldo was quite far back a few years ago and caught up.

It’s not about what they can or can’t do, it’s about when they do. Ronaldo delivers much more consistently on the biggest stage.
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This is such garbage. It's all recently bias as Madrid have won 4 CL's in the last 5 years.
 
Cal? said:
The fact is that this has been locked for ages to save face for Messi, Ronaldo was quite far back a few years ago and caught up.
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Yeah, right enough. I had heard Messi was on tenterhooks awaiting the result.
 
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Zehner said:
I fully understand your point. If you want to, you can also compare other players in similar positions with Scholes/Ferdinand/whoever. When you already play in the best league in the world, what does it prove if you move into an inferior league?
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Nothing. Playing in different formations, different systems, different philosophies, different teams with different strenghts and weaknesses obviously shows a versatility and ability to adapt that a player staying at one club for their whole career won't have as much chance to show.

Ronaldo will obviously be rated higher for leaving Madrid and proving he can perform at the same level at Juve too than he would have by staying in Madrid. Do you not think there's any merit to the way he handled the process of this year's change?
 
Cal? said:
The fact is that this has been locked for ages to save face for Messi, Ronaldo was quite far back a few years ago and caught up.

It’s not about what they can or can’t do, it’s about when they do. Ronaldo delivers much more consistently on the biggest stage.
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Although I'm not completely sure about the truth of that statement(Messi also has an amazing goal record vs the biggest teams), but even if we take it at face value general consistensy over a career also makes a difference. Someone like Zidane was unparalled for midfielders for showing up in the biggest games and being the main man in finals, yet someone like Scholes was maybe more consistently good over season at making his team tick, and won a lot more at club level than Zidane did.
 
Shamana said:
Although I'm not completely sure about the truth of that statement(Messi also has an amazing goal record vs the biggest teams), but even if we take it at face value general consistensy over a career also makes a difference. Someone like Zidane was unparalled for midfielders for showing up in the biggest games and being the main man in finals, yet someone like Scholes was maybe more consistently good over season at making his team tick, and won a lot more at club level than Zidane did.
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Most people in the world rate Zidane above Scholes for the reason you mentioned
 
Does the Messi v Ronaldo debate resemble the Federer v Nadal debate for anyone else?

For me, personally, they're pretty much the same debate.

Ronaldo/Nadal is one of the best of all time.

Messi/Federer is the best of all time.

I've never heard anyone whose opinions on sport I respect say anything but that.
 
Peyroteo said:
What about all of the rest? Completely ignoring the facets of the game Ronaldo is better at while only focusing on the facets of the game Messi's better at will lead to an obvious conclusion. No shit.

Also, Ronaldo is anything but a striker.
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What are all the facets of the game that Ronaldo is better at? Im not saying the poster hasn’t been rather selective in which aspects of play they’ve chosen to list, but I completely agree with their overall conclusion.
 
BaseFishing said:
Does the Messi v Ronaldo debate resemble the Federer v Nadal debate for anyone else?

For me, personally, they're pretty much the same debate.

Ronaldo/Nadal is one of the best of all time.

Messi/Federer is the best of all time.

I've never heard anyone whose opinions on sport I respect say anything but that.
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Federer has the trophies to prove it. Messi doesn’t.

It’s more like Ronaldo - Schumacher
Messi - Senna
 
Jagga7 said:
Scoring a bunch of tap ins and penalties isn't that great though. A lot of them goals were while his team was already up as well.
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If scoring a bunch of tap ins and penalties was that easy, I wonder why no one else thought about doing it
 
Jagga7 said:
Scoring a bunch of tap ins and penalties isn't that great though. A lot of them goals were while his team was already up as well.
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Messi scores 1 in 4 penalties. Dam must be real easy.
 
Cal? said:
Federer has the trophies to prove it. Messi doesn’t.

It’s more like Ronaldo - Schumacher
Messi - Senna
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I personally don't think trophies in football is a good way to measure how good a single player is. The game takes 11.
 
I still think this should be pinned to the top of every new page in the thread.

 
Cal? said:
If scoring a bunch of tap ins and penalties was that easy, I wonder why no one else thought about doing it
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He's been playing for Real and he really chases the goals. He really pads those stats.

Reminds of me when he scored the 4th goal in the CL final against Atletico, a penalty funny enough and he celebrated like he had scored the World Cup winner. Really sums him up.
 
Cal? said:
That’s true, but being the key player in a winning team makes a huge difference.
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Yes, but for me it's not as much about the latter part, it's former - it's not the "being a key player in a winning team", it's more the "being a key player in a winning team".

In other words, whether the team wins or loses is the most important thing as far as the team is concerned. But if we'll be judging who the best player is, then that becomes secondary. The most imporatnt thing regarding who the best player is, is just that - who's the best player.

This is how I think about it - the aim of war is obviously to win the war. But if you were judging who the best soldier is, you wouldn't just look at whoever won the war. That would be irrelevant because winning the war takes a lot more than one soldier. So you'd simply look at only the characteristics which decide who the best soldier is, in their own regard, even if their side lost the war.
 
sherrinford said:
What are all the facets of the game that Ronaldo is better at? Im not saying the poster hasn’t been rather selective in which aspects of play they’ve chosen to list, but I completely agree with their overall conclusion.
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Throughout his career? Heading, two-footedness, crossing, off the ball movement, physical presence, wing play, hold up play, impact on offensive and defensive set pieces, leadership, mobility, adaptability, counterattacking, verticality, playing with his back to goal, long range threat, etc.

You can agree or disagree with any of those or their importance. The point is football isn't scoring, passing and dribbling. It's obviously a lot more complex than that. Saying Messi is better because he scores about the same and assists more is just ignorant.
 
Jagga7 said:
He's been playing for Real and he really chases the goals. He really pads those stats.

Reminds of me when he scored the 4th goal in the CL final against Atletico, a penalty funny enough and he celebrated like he had scored the World Cup winner. Really sums him up.
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That he’s extremely driven? I agree
 
Jagga7 said:
Scoring a bunch of tap ins and penalties isn't that great though. A lot of them goals were while his team was already up as well.
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Tries to act neutral by saying recency bias and then posts this :lol:

Why cant messi score tap ins or penalties instead of blaming higuain for screwing him out of two copas and a WC?
 
Zehner said:
I fully understand your point. If you want to, you can also compare other players in similar positions with Scholes/Ferdinand/whoever. When you already play in the best league in the world, what does it prove if you move into an inferior league?

Those things have nothing to do with actual football. The fact that these points are consistently made says more about the actual discussion than these arguments say about who's the better football player.
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That is because, it is so rare, so rare that there's almost no identical level of success/acheivement among the best players in history, so it becomes irrelevant.

But regarding Messi vs Ronaldo, we have 5 Ballon D'or winner each in exact same era, stats are similar, no. of trophies similar, individual records similar, it never ever really happens before, so it becomes an interesting topic to explore.

There' one thing call comfort zone, and for most players they strive under one system but may find it hard in another. Moving away from one club to another, for most people, would take some time to adapt. Sometimes they adapt and doing well, sometimes they don't. For a player to adapt very quick and done so well everywhere, is very rare. It adds weight in discussion under some rare circumstances, although its irrelevant in most scenario as explained above.
 
BaseFishing said:
Yes, but for me it's not as much about the latter part, it's former - it's not the "being a key player in a winning team", it's more the "being a key player in a winning team".

In other words, whether the team wins or loses is the most important thing as far as the team is concerned. But if we'll be judging who the best player is, then that becomes secondary. The most imporatnt thing regarding who the best player is, is just that - who's the best player.

This is how I think about it - the aim of war is obviously to win the war. But if you were judging who the best soldier is, you wouldn't just look at whoever won the war. That would be irrelevant because winning the war takes a lot more than one soldier. So you'd simply look at only the characteristics which decide who the best soldier is, in their own regard, even if their side lost the war.
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Every game is not equal to each other, winning matters in football, a lot.

Hence being the key player when the team WINS the biggest trophies count a lot more than being a key player in winning smaller matches.
 
Cal? said:
Every game is not equal to each other, winning matters in football, a lot.

Hence being the key player when the team WINS the biggest trophies count a lot more than being a key player in winning smaller matches.
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Again, if we go back to the metaphor - what you're saying is that not every battle in the war is equal. Which I agree with of course. So you're saying if a soldier was important for winning a key battle that would have more weight in the debate, so the speak, than a soldier who helped to win a less significant battle.

That's all fine. But, again, for me personally (to bring it back to football), matches, trophies, all of that, comes secondary to just watching Messi and watching Ronaldo (for how many years now...) and seeing what I see. I see a great player, one of the best ever. And then I see a genius.
 
BaseFishing said:
Yes, but for me it's not as much about the latter part, it's former - it's not the "being a key player in a winning team", it's more the "being a key player in a winning team".

In other words, whether the team wins or loses is the most important thing as far as the team is concerned. But if we'll be judging who the best player is, then that becomes secondary. The most imporatnt thing regarding who the best player is, is just that - who's the best player.

This is how I think about it - the aim of war is obviously to win the war. But if you were judging who the best soldier is, you wouldn't just look at whoever won the war. That would be irrelevant because winning the war takes a lot more than one soldier. So you'd simply look at only the characteristics which decide who the best soldier is, in their own regard, even if their side lost the war.
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The soldier who won more wars with less and worse men on his side should get more recognition that the soldier who wasn't able to do it as often with more and better soldiers on his side...

Actual effectiveness in winning the war should be more important than a completely subjective view of the characteristics that make the better soldier :)
 
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