I think Messi's better, but who are the lunatics using the Ballon D'Or as the only and only yardstick for who's the best?
most of us are kidding. I’d rather barca win CL than another ballon d’or for Messi
Messi v Ronaldo | Contains double your daily salt allowance
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most of us are kidding. I’d rather barca win CL than another ballon d’or for Messi
I think Messi's better, but who are the lunatics using the Ballon D'Or as the only and only yardstick for who's the best?
Im in the camp that believes that Messi is better, but I agree that an extra Ballon D'or doesn't settle the argument. I read on a danish barca fansite that Messi plans to retire at 35 which may be or not be true. A lot of the greats like to retire while on a high. Ronaldo because of his freakisk athletism might continue to play til he's 40 and finish with more goals and possibly more trophies.
But yeah anyway, Messi was a different class to anyone else last season. He deserved the award and is now the record holder. That at the very least puts him on the level of Pelé and Maradonna despite not winning a WC and all that.
He might go on to play until 40, but it won’t be at the top level. He has already been on the decline for the past few years and it’s only getting worse. He has a chance at top level trophies for another year or two at best in my view, and I don’t think he has any chance at an individual award anymore.
We can never underestimate a person like Ronaldo. His ego is hurt and can see him playing like a wounded lion for trophies and individual awards from now on.
So what the feck was he playing for before all this time?
Messi winning his sixth Ballon d’Or is the best thing that could have happened for Juventus.
Expect him to play like a man possessed.
Expect him to play like a man possessed.
There is only so much he can do himself, Sarri and Juventus will eventually slow down his production. Sounds more like wishful thinking
Yeah I can’t speak for the team as a whole but this will only motivate Ronaldo which can’t be a bad thing for them
It depends, imagine an even more motivated Ronaldo and Sarri subbing him to preserve/rest him. That could be the recipe for a good fashioned fall out. Ronaldo could try to do things too much on his own, there are possible scenarios (positives and negatives).
It's hard to tell with all the fanboys on both sides
I think it's great people get so passionate about a player, but it's mad when people piss on one to shine the otherI don't think it'll make a big difference, CR7 is motivated regardless of what's happening. At some point the body can't keep up with what the mind wants to do. I think he's already at that stage. He'll still have the odd game of brilliance here and there, but it won't be major difference post-award show. He will have his moments of magic sprinkled throughout the season whereas Messi, who is also on the decline, will continue to have those moments at least once in pretty much every game.
The way I see football, Lionel Messi is the superior footballer. In terms of 'greatness', there is a strong argument that Cristiano Ronaldo is the 'greater' footballer.
This doesn't even make sense.
Footballer X can be a 'better' footballer than footballer Y, but Y can be 'greater' based on achievements, media promotion, popularity and multiple other factors.
Exactly let's just talk about football ey, media promotion popularity and the other multiple factors shouldn't come into the argument.
Media promotion ffs. Soon they’ll be measured on their looks and IG followers.
One just tried a bit harder. You could say he kind of had to compete with Messi.
There isn't really any great managers and footballers who say that Ronaldo is the Goat. Even his own team mates and managers pick Messi.
I get what he's saying though.
First and foremost I personally have chosen Ronaldo over Messi.
Fundamentally, in the last 3, 4 years, I tune in to watch both of them for completely different reasons.
When I tune in to watch Messi at this point in his career I want to watch him for the eye pleasing incredible football he plays. The quality of the actual act of playing football, which has no competition whatsoever right now (Ronaldo was as incredible during his career's first half).
When I tune in to watch Ronaldo right now I'm there for the MOMENTS he produces. Not the quality itself. He doesn't need to play quality footbqll to make an impact. I'm watching so I can see the guy turn a tie around "by himself", to see him be there when it matters, when things have gone wrong. It's like when you watch a Hollywood movie, and the main character has to undo all the bad stuff that's happenning, and the guy actually turns things around and it all ends well.
What we actually believe in is the way we personally view football is the absolutely only correct way. It's not. There isn't a singlular formula for the best player on a pitch. Either way, it's valid that one person considers good football as THE metric, and another person considers other aspects such as, as it gets said a lot nowadays, "clutchness".
That's fundamentally the difference in the brilliance of these 2 guys.
When we love football as kids and we are lying in bed before sleeping and we dream about football, we always imagine ourselves doing 1 of 2 things. We imagine ourselves on a pitch, dribbling past 6 guys and scoring the greatest goals you could ever well, imagine. Or we dream about scoring THOSE goals, the ones that saved the team's life, the ones that gave you titles, the ones where you were deep in the mud but you scored that last minute goal and everyone went wild.
And that's Messi and that's Ronaldo. When I watch them, and they produce magic, and I go to YouTube to re-watch highlights, Messi's magic is "wow, he's so freaking good, what a God". Ronaldo's magic is "wow, I can't believe he's turned the tie around AGAIN".
It's like the tennis situation. Federer has a godlike touch and smoothness like Messi, but Djokovic and Nadal are mentally brutal, physically out of this world, and can turn things around better than Federer when they are in trouble, and that's just as world class to me as anything else.
I can admit as a Ronaldo fan that in the entirety of theirs careers, Messi is a better footballer. But Ronaldo just produces Hollywood-like scripts like it's another routine day at work.
For me, Messi is probably the best footballer I've seen in quality, but Ronaldo is the greatest one I've ever seen. Incredible guy, really, whose mind and heart I've never seen in any sport since I was born.
Messi is goat . No doubt.
The only way Ronaldo could win another Ballon d'Or would be to decide the Champions League with a run of deciding goals like 2017 or be top scorer and best player at Euro 2020. He'll be 35 next year and his goal rate is already dropping off, he can't realistically match the top players anymore. Anyone expecting Ronaldo to be putting up the numbers of his 20s at 35+ is delusional. But he can still decide big games and that's what he'll be remembered for at this stage of his career.
It's quite astonishing that the people calling to close the thread because Messi won his 6th Ballon D'or were the SAME people claiming the award was nothing more than a glorified popularity contest when Ronaldo was winning it. What changed?
P.S. I don't have any problem with Messi winning it, he was a deserved winner. I just don't like the inconsistency of the award. There's no set criteria on how they decide the winner. So in a sense it is a popularity contest. VVD was red hot favourite for the majority of the year until Messi had a late media rally behind him. Similar thing happened in 2018 where all the journalists were calling for Modric to break the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly after Ronaldo had been a strong favourite for most of the year.
P.S. I don't have any problem with Messi winning it, he was a deserved winner. I just don't like the inconsistency of the award. There's no set criteria on how they decide the winner. So in a sense it is a popularity contest. VVD was red hot favourite for the majority of the year until Messi had a late media rally behind him. Similar thing happened in 2018 where all the journalists were calling for Modric to break the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly after Ronaldo had been a strong favourite for most of the year.
To be fair, the biggest case of that was in 2013 when it was expected Ribery would win it but voting was extended for some reason and just happened to coincide with Ronaldo scoring a hat-trick in a World Cup qualifier. Extension of voting came after Blatter upset Ronaldo, it's the only time it's ever been extended.
The best player in the world is Lionel Messi
The second best player is Lionel Messi injured
The second best player is Lionel Messi injured
Messi far and away the best in the world.
Thread should be Messi vs everyone else.
Thread should be Messi vs everyone else.
Another scintillating hattrick against mallorca 
With his ability he really shouldnt have had Ronaldo on his level all his career, he should have had a clear gap in quality between him and a player Like C Ronaldo but ultimately he didn't.
No problem for people who think why the lad is better - but the fact that he didn't is the reason why Ronaldo is the best footballer in terms of career, achievements and pushing himself.
With his ability he really shouldnt have had Ronaldo on his level all his career, he should have had a clear gap in quality between him and a player Like C Ronaldo but ultimately he didn't.
No problem for people who think why the lad is better - but the fact that he didn't is the reason why Ronaldo is the best footballer in terms of career, achievements and pushing himself.
Another scintillating hattrick against mallorca
With his ability he really shouldnt have had Ronaldo on his level all his career, he should have had a clear gap in quality between him and a player Like C Ronaldo but ultimately he didn't.
No problem for people who think why the lad is better - but the fact that he didn't is the reason why Ronaldo is the best footballer in terms of career, achievements and pushing himself.
Wow, Messi scores a really beautiful hattrick and here comes a post on why that validates why he's not the best in the world. Can't win can he? Despite just winning another ballon'dor
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He can win - against mallorca to be fair. Hasn't done much post Iniesta & Xavi periods of note, sure his numbers are nice but they have always been bubbly in La liga & I don't think players like Ronaldo & Benzema would struggle there either even when ageing.
Still definitely the most gifted player I have ever seen - but I don't know how anyone could argue that Messi should be an easy Mile or two away from C Ronaldo in terms of career achievements or just a career full stop.
Just a shame.
I mean don't get me wrong - you had people here saying Rashford & Lingard weren't Championship quality two weeks ago and now people crying about Messi scoring a hattrick against mallorca and wondering why no one bat's an eye lid? You think Mallorca players are any good? Have La Liga below top 7 been anyway good enough in the last 2 decades?
It's not because that Messi isn't special - he is, but he does go missing.
Does well and scores & set up goals for the team on semi/quarter finals - but again it isn't too hard in an important match to have Messi do the amazing work for 70 mins for Barcelona and everyone wondering what happened for the important last 20 minutes regularly now( vs Liverpool etc).
Pep Guardiola's tactics are starting to get realised as overrated as they ain't working outside Barcelona at Bayern Nor City. Likewise I don't think Messi can be this guarantee like Pep wasn't either outside his comfort zone because he has failed with Argentina, not really push it post Iniesta and Xavi period to anything by himself to take Barcelona back up another level and all he has now is an overwhelming amount of over inflated number come from a league where players routinely shoot with their eyes closes and C Ronaldo is the proof of that.
All C Ronaldo fans will say that Messi is hands down the better more capable footballer - but the fact that there was this man in the same damn era with no where near the technical capabilities of Messi, matching him in everything he did in what should be his era? That's just disappointing on Messi? How is it not?
Ultimately even if football is beautiful - it still is a game - and Ronaldo is a winner and more one than Messi.
No matter what tricks Messi can pull off against betis, mallorca or Boateng won't change that for me.
You know Messi has more goals against the top 4 clubs in spain than he has against mediocre and lower teams. He's not just a flat track bully. He scored the late winner against Athletico Madrid just last liga match. He scored a hattrick against Real Madrid when he was 19 and Barca where down to 10 men. He's scored more goals against the best PL teams than the most of the best PL strikers have.
Ever since opta started recording player ratings Messi has 100 10/10 performances while the 2nd Ronaldo has 36.
Last season he scored the only goal for his team in the Copa Del Rey Final
Last season he was CL topscorer and scored the 2 out of 3 goals barcalona scored in the semi.
Have you ever heard that it's not just great players that win club trophies but also great teams and great managers.
Did Liverpool win the CL last season and won 97 points in the league because they have the worlds best player? No not all. But they have a fecking great manager who knows how to build a team.
It took Ronaldo 6 years to make a CL final with Real Madrid after he joined. Was that because he was a failure then or because it took Madrid a while to assemble that right team and the right manager?
Honestly calling Messi out as a failure every time he doesnt win a CL or WC is pathetic.
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@bakalhau good post but a demon sprouts every time the word "clutchness" is used when not referring to a manual transmission
Ronaldo got outscored in the Seria A last season by 3 players i've never heard of. Topscorer was Quagliarella who plays for Samporia and is even older than Ronaldo. So far this year Ronaldo has 9 goals in 18 games in the Seria A while Messi has 14 goals in 15 games.
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If La Liga is that easy to score in you wonder why great strikers like Raul or Luiz Ronaldo didn't put up the same numbers. C. Ronaldo and Messi are both freaks in terms of consistency. Ronaldo and Messi are deemed to have a poor season if they "only" score 40 goals.
No it took Ronaldo 6 years to win it for Real Madrid because Pep created the best team ever. Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Puyol, Pique etc who had been playing together since age 10. Messi was part of that to.
He does the same things against the same clubs its heavily inflated. He fights against Real Madrid & Atheltico Madrid - of that only one were even remotely defensively solid and no one can convince me otherwise. I'm not trying to say that he isn't a flat track bully - but when the hell did La Liga turn in to the Epitome of the darn sport now for him to be scoring 57 goals, goals against utter rubbish teams where you literally see Barcelona walking the damn ball in to the goal
like honestly - and for Barcelona not win things like CL's and for him to win the Balon Dor because he has an over inflated scoreline in an over inflated league?Easy on.
People will say Ronaldo has ages an all that. I don't care what people say but he would be on atleast 40+ easy every season still on La liga because that's the type of football it produces when you have a team like Barcelona or Real Madrid playing against Damn Mallorca. God damn.
I incooperate an image of the Messi I saw that played for Pep, with players like Xavi & Iniesta literally teasing players for Messi to dribble on - the Messi that was at 100%.
Then I see the Messi nowadays who has a few hard games in La Liga, dozens of easy games in La Liga, Produces for the CL games consistently but ultimately is missing when the team needs him the most, the one who has this mentality maybe now to suddenly play like a combination of all xavi, iniesta and Messi in one when Barcelona need it rather than playing a simplified winning mentality of football like Ronaldo would do just to score a damn header.
I don't know man. I'm not here to convince anyone that Ronaldo is better - because that's just a waste of time. But my lord, you could see exactly why he has done everything he did. Why he changed his game at United, why he moved to RM, why he changed his game at RM and broke records, why he went for it at International level, why he just packed up his bags and left for Juventus and then won La liga and if it wasn't for Sarri I'd be confident he'd be having a better season too.
The man wanted to be seen as the Goat, and he succeeded in ever test he set for his damn self.
Messi set himself few challenges early on, achieved it, kept it relatively simple rather than pushing it further and here we now are talking about the most technically gifted footballer ever In Messi vs the best world wide footballing career ever to have lived in Ronaldo.
That just dissapoints me a little bit.
If Messi has a little bit of the fight in him - he could have done more to not be in an argument. But he is. Loyalty or not, if he wanted to be the undisputed Goat of all time no competition, all he had to do was things like try few new Leagues, new teams, do the things he did and the consistency he produced at Barcelona. He didn't care and fair enough and that's him but Ronaldo did care and he went for it and he proved that to me. I saw Messi perform wonders against Real & Atheltico Madrid but they were always for Barcelona playing near 70% same type of football in his career. I saw him walk the ball to the net when playing teams like Mallorca and Betis in La liga with Neymar, Suarez, Villa sitting beside him. Yet it was again the same Barcelona, same Tempo, same players, same season, just a different stadium. I saw him rip CL teams up with Barcelona but again, with Barcelona playing the same way he grew up with and he breathes with. Barcelona have easily been the best team in the world for near 2 decades even without bringing Messi in to the talk, he played with some of the best players of the footballing history - Xavi, Iniesta, Alves, Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Villa,Busquets, Puyol, Pique - I can't even be bothered. Who did Ronaldo have? Kroos, Scholes, Carrick, Rooney, Modric, Ramos, Varane? Sure not lightweights but a noticeable gap & a significant one at that. Barcelona regressed as a team around Messi & even up to Real Madrid's club levels - Ronaldo snatched up the CL's.
Ronaldo wanted to be the Goat and you can see it in his eyes. Messi doesn't care & he spends all his life scoring in La liga if he has to and wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't win another CL again (he might) because the team around him has deteriorated and whilst he produces for the team that produced him - he goes missing in those clutch minutes where that club needs him the most. The time a winner just does something maybe that could win a game. He didn't try to prove himself anywhere in a different tactical setup or team and the only time in Argentina he hardly set the copa America up regularly either did he and that's nasty easy.
Anyway - ultimately as I always say, it's just like what I always say - some men go for the extremely pretty woman who cooks 5 times a week in Spain. I don't personally mind having a slightly worse looking girl who cooks for me 7 days a week all across the world for many different teams as long as I don't get diabetes.
Peace.
You comparing La liga to Serie A? Come on man you must know the type of football is different? You see players literally walking the ball in to the net in La liga and nothing of the sort in Serie A.
Also Sarri Is shite. Its a pure assumption that Messi would do well in Serie A. He never wanted to test himself, so why should we believe that he would do well? Playing for Barcelona next to Neymar & Suarez is different to lining up next to Lukaku as your striker partner.
In that regards he didn't want to test himself in different scenarios &in leagues - because he wasn't interested in the type of experiments and career Ronaldo was trying to do. C Ronaldo had a greed to be GOAT so he moved around and tried to prove himself. Messi stuck where he was comfortable.
Anyway I really can't be bothered. Nice talking to you.
Ronaldo moved to Juventus because they doubled his wage. Juventus won Serie A seven years in a row, so winning it eighth time simply isn't any sort of achievement, they would've won regardless. If he wanted to test and prove himself he should have transferred to Roma or Milan, had he managed to lift them to the title that would have been a different story.
What club could Messi possible move to that a step up from Barcelona? Real Madrid and Barcelona are the dream clubs for latin players. Messi he already landed in Barcelona when he was 14. Since Messi hit his prime Barcelona has turned into a super power in terms of prestige, wealth and fanbase. There is no club he could move to that wouldn't be step down and very few clubs that can afford him.
Probably only City and PSG could afford them and then we would call him a mercanery.
Since when did we stop celebrating one club legends? Do you think Messi doesn't care about Barcelona despite being there since he was 14? Players like Figo, Luiz Ronaldo and Michael Laudrup could transfer to Real Madrid. Messi is a La Mazia product, he would never do something like that.
Maybe when Messi is 35 he'll move to Bayern, juventus and PSG and walk the league with them like they do every year and people will go on about how he's proven himself in another league.
Anyway you can't blame Ronaldo's form on Sarri since the narrative is that Ronaldo will outscore anyone in any team like Stoke under any manager despite the fact he's spent almost his entire club career at the biggest clubs in the world.
By the way Lukaku is not Ronaldo's striker partner and lukkaku is outscoring Ronaldo too. I'm not trying to downplay Ronaldo, I think he's one of the greatest ever and if he didn't play in the same generation as Messi, he might have won 8 or 9 Ballon'dors and the same goes for Messi. Ronaldo is an all-time great, but he's reaching his twillight years as a footballer and I don't consider declining as a footballer at 35 as a failure. He's just not the best in the world anymore and winning the league with Juventus who's walked it 7 years in a row and getting outscored by 36 year old who plays for sampdoria doesn't prove to me, he's the greatest ever.
I guess players like Giggs and Scholes were cowards too because they didn't move to Seria A or La liga when they were in their prime years. Players like Gerrard and Totti too. Let's stop celebrating club legends and just call them cowards for not moving out of their "comfort" zone.
It's a myth too these days that less goals are scored in Seria A than than La Liga. Seria A is not what is was back in the 90's and 80's.
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What about the CL? I'm sure that's what Ronaldo wanted to go for. The Serie A probably means crap all for him and I doubt Juventus payed all that for him to win the Serie A.
Yet Messi continues to do the same old thing, same old story, same old league, same old friends, same old results. Things start deteriorating around him his number remain over inflated due to mallorca and Co yet he isn't exactly doing things(maybe winning things) the level he did when he had players like Iniesta and Xavi behind him.
Just a bit of Ronaldo's over inflated ego and mentality to be the best and GOAT - Messi would have gone to the Serie A, the PL or even PSG and tried something different and we could see how wonderful he performs - if he performs the way he performs when he plays for Barcelona, playing a type of football he breathes and has tattood to his DNA alongside the strongest squad for 2 decades or more like the Messi we see for Argentina which is also a Goat level player quality but I'd say that people would be having open minded conversations about.
If he was performing Barcelona Messi for PSG, Man City, Inter Milan - even God damn Argentina, that 38% Ronaldo would be more like 5%.
Thats why it's disappointing. Messi is had the capacity to sh*te on Ronaldo's Career and instead Ronaldo kept tapping on his back from different countries, different Leagues, different levels, different competitions. My Goat.
I hope you enjoy yours.
Barca scored 41 goals in 15 La Liga games this season (Messi scored 12), Juventus scored 26 goals in 15 Serie A games (Ronaldo scored 7).
Its really hard to compare the goals. Its frustrating to watch Juventus at times, they seem too defensive-minded and lack of creativity from midfield, and even when they are a goal down, there's no urgency in their play and they tend to overcomplicate too much passing the ball around. Its like watching LVG philosophy at display with endless circulation of possession at their own half with no real impact made in the final third. I start to wonder did Ronaldo make the right career decision moving to Juventus?
Absolutely not. But they ain't talked about Goats. Iniesta and Xavi were loyal to Barca but you saw exactly how Spain 100% copied Barcelona tactics whilst Xavi & Iniesta won everything they could winning WC's and more with absolute ease. Messi looked different at Argentina.
Over inflated.
And again their is this assumption that Messi would be the top goalscorer at Serie A. Like how? I couldn't care less about Ronaldo - Qualigueria is a completely different type of player to Messi the same way the Smalling is a completely different type of defender to nearly every other defender in La Liga. Not a single team in Serie A play like Barcelona so why would Messi find it easy to score 20 goals when a team might not even be able to streak 5 passes together in such a physical, defensive and harsh league? Not only do teams not play like Barcelona, the opposition play on a completely different way to every other team in La liga as well. No way that Messi would be doing things at Serie A to La Liga standards, not without that tactics, team mates, style and general management across the league. Just watch a match. Just because Messi can nut meg a serie A defender in the CL after receiving the ball from Arthur or Xavi on a consistent basis doesn't mean that he can do the same thing playing in a different league in a different team in a different city. You really don't need proof of this from other peoples careers do you?
Anyway I totally get why Messi is regarded as GOAT- he is absolutely beautiful to watch but for me part of that and a significant part of that has always come from Barcelona. I personally value the ability to win and kind of push and test your self like Ronaldo has done - before YouTube and as a kid I had to read books about ancient old footballers who went to all these Leagues across the world and absolutely bossed it with ridiculous inflated numbers and kept moving. Ronaldo was the one I only ever got to saw do that with my eyes. Messi kind of was happy living with what he had, doing something I felt was always very easy for him in La liga and playing for the greatest team of the last 2 decades.
No it took Ronaldo 6 years to win it for Real Madrid because Pep created the best team ever. Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Puyol, Pique etc who had been playing together since age 10. Messi was part of that to.
He does the same things against the same clubs its heavily inflated. He fights against Real Madrid & Atheltico Madrid - of that only one were even remotely defensively solid and no one can convince me otherwise. I'm not trying to say that he isn't a flat track bully - but when the hell did La Liga turn in to the Epitome of the darn sport now for him to be scoring 57 goals, goals against utter rubbish teams where you literally see Barcelona walking the damn ball in to the goal
Easy on.
People will say Ronaldo has ages an all that. I don't care what people say but he would be on atleast 40+ easy every season still on La liga because that's the type of football it produces when you have a team like Barcelona or Real Madrid playing against Damn Mallorca. God damn.
I incooperate an image of the Messi I saw that played for Pep, with players like Xavi & Iniesta literally teasing players for Messi to dribble on - the Messi that was at 100%.
Then I see the Messi nowadays who has a few hard games in La Liga, dozens of easy games in La Liga, Produces for the CL games consistently but ultimately is missing when the team needs him the most, the one who has this mentality maybe now to suddenly play like a combination of all xavi, iniesta and Messi in one when Barcelona need it rather than playing a simplified winning mentality of football like Ronaldo would do just to score a damn header.
I don't know man. I'm not here to convince anyone that Ronaldo is better - because that's just a waste of time. But my lord, you could see exactly why he has done everything he did. Why he changed his game at United, why he moved to RM, why he changed his game at RM and broke records, why he went for it at International level, why he just packed up his bags and left for Juventus and then won La liga and if it wasn't for Sarri I'd be confident he'd be having a better season too.
The man wanted to be seen as the Goat, and he succeeded in ever test he set for his damn self.
Messi set himself few challenges early on, achieved it, kept it relatively simple rather than pushing it further and here we now are talking about the most technically gifted footballer ever In Messi vs the best world wide footballing career ever to have lived in Ronaldo.
That just dissapoints me a little bit.
If Messi has a little bit of the fight in him - he could have done more to not be in an argument. But he is. Loyalty or not, if he wanted to be the undisputed Goat of all time no competition, all he had to do was things like try few new Leagues, new teams, do the things he did and the consistency he produced at Barcelona. He didn't care and fair enough and that's him but Ronaldo did care and he went for it and he proved that to me. I saw Messi perform wonders against Real & Atheltico Madrid but they were always for Barcelona playing near 70% same type of football in his career. I saw him walk the ball to the net when playing teams like Mallorca and Betis in La liga with Neymar, Suarez, Villa sitting beside him. Yet it was again the same Barcelona, same Tempo, same players, same season, just a different stadium. I saw him rip CL teams up with Barcelona but again, with Barcelona playing the same way he grew up with and he breathes with. Barcelona have easily been the best team in the world for near 2 decades even without bringing Messi in to the talk, he played with some of the best players of the footballing history - Xavi, Iniesta, Alves, Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Villa,Busquets, Puyol, Pique - I can't even be bothered. Who did Ronaldo have? Kroos, Scholes, Carrick, Rooney, Modric, Ramos, Varane? Sure not lightweights but a noticeable gap & a significant one at that. Barcelona regressed as a team around Messi & even up to Real Madrid's club levels - Ronaldo snatched up the CL's.
Ronaldo wanted to be the Goat and you can see it in his eyes. Messi doesn't care & he spends all his life scoring in La liga if he has to and wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't win another CL again (he might) because the team around him has deteriorated and whilst he produces for the team that produced him - he goes missing in those clutch minutes where that club needs him the most. The time a winner just does something maybe that could win a game. He didn't try to prove himself anywhere in a different tactical setup or team and the only time in Argentina he hardly set the copa America up regularly either did he and that's nasty easy.
Anyway - ultimately as I always say, it's just like what I always say - some men go for the extremely pretty woman who cooks 5 times a week in Spain. I don't personally mind having a slightly worse looking girl who cooks for me 7 days a week all across the world for many different teams as long as I don't get diabetes.
Peace.
Apart from 2011 it wasn't Barcelona that knocked Real Madrid out of the CL. But messi's 2nd goal in his brace in the semi is probably the best cl goal of all time. You can blame Barcelona for why Madrid rarely won the la liga, but you can't blame them for why it took them so long to become CL juggernauts. But when they got going they certainly didn't stop.
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