Messi v Ronaldo | Contains double your daily salt allowance

Messi or Ronaldo

  • Messi

  • Ronaldo


Results are only viewable after voting.
Status
Not open for further replies.
I've read some ridiculous shite before but these two really stand out -
That's exactly what the majority of football fans think of you're laughable post claiming Ronaldo 'shit's on Messi internationally.

Howling opinion.
 
Someone has seriously misunderstood Dunning-Kruger, but it sounds smart to post innit?

Even Forrest Gump would sound smart discussing with you, so there's no need to bring Dunning-Kruger into this if it wasn't the case. Mate, you're the one suggesting the player that regularly picks up the ball at the half way line and probably has the best pre assist and dribbling stats in history is all about goals and assists. And not only that, you're also delivering it with a passion (even anger) that one can only assume you're incredibly convinced by this factually (!) wrong opinion. So yeah, Dunning-Kruger say hi.

Anyway, I'm out. Wish you a nice day, maybe relax a little.
 
He scored 2 goals vs Hungary :)
Anyway this debate has been long settled for me as I judge the players more on ability than on stats and silverware.
And I think we can all agree that in their primes Messi had more ability.
Btw both players have underwhelming international careers and Ronaldos performance in 2016 is hardly the stuff of legends.



State personal beliefs as self evident facts ☑
Meaningless non-sequitur to denigrate rival's achievements ☑
Use intangible and unquantified 'ability' in careless argument ☑

Despite your flippant 'i think we can all agree', the existence of this thread proves otherwise. I think they're largely on a par, myself. Messi: prettier to watch. Ronaldo: more adaptable and proven across a broader range of contexts
 
I personally believe Ronaldo is the greatest player of all time – but happy to acknowledge people have different opinions.

Despite their overall stats being so similar and at the same time completely unprecedented – which demonstrates the exceptional levels both of these have reached – I will always argue that the fact Ronaldo has achieved all he has across three different leagues as being hugely significant. People can speculate how Messi would fare in the Premier League, but it is just speculation.
 
I personally believe Ronaldo is the greatest player of all time – but happy to acknowledge people have different opinions.

Despite their overall stats being so similar and at the same time completely unprecedented – which demonstrates the exceptional levels both of these have reached – I will always argue that the fact Ronaldo has achieved all he has across three different leagues as being hugely significant. People can speculate how Messi would fare in the Premier League, but it is just speculation.
Agreed. Messi could (and I think would) have torn other leagues up like he did la Liga but we'll never know. Instead he stayed within a system that had been built around him as the centre and never moved away. And why would you, tbf. But for me, Ronaldo doing it across leagues puts him at least on a par with Messi.
 
How can one argue with that level of knowledge. :lol:

“Pre-assists”, you’re rapidly becoming a caricature on here.

DK indeed.

Pre assists are a thing though even if they don't get added to stats. The likes of Iniesta would be redundant if they weren't a thing. Scholes also created space all the time to open up play to allow Beckham to wip in a ball for RVN and Cole etc to score.

Pre assists or creating space and keeping the game ticking are vastly under rated because they can't be added to a ridiculous stat sheet.
 
I personally believe Ronaldo is the greatest player of all time – but happy to acknowledge people have different opinions.

Despite their overall stats being so similar and at the same time completely unprecedented – which demonstrates the exceptional levels both of these have reached – I will always argue that the fact Ronaldo has achieved all he has across three different leagues as being hugely significant. People can speculate how Messi would fare in the Premier League, but it is just speculation.

How is it speculation when he's destroyed the teams consistently in the Champions League?
 
How can one argue with that level of knowledge. :lol:

“Pre-assists”, you’re rapidly becoming a caricature on here.

DK indeed.

I'm not sure what you are laughing about. Normally multiple players are involved in a goal so goals/assists are almost never the complete picture. Case in point: Pogba vs Germany.
 
How is it speculation when he's destroyed the teams consistently in the Champions League?

and your telling me that teams have not destroyed Messi?

Messi has played with one of the tactically dense teams of all time - the same team That went and portrayed their brilliance when Spain won world and euro cups.

yet consistently it is Messi who gets the praise apparently for that period which is just straight bizarre. He was the icing on the cake rather than the main ingredient.

The further Barcelona go from that period (Iniesta and xavis retirement) the further they are to even to the basicof successes.

Even after they left they still have the ability to play possession football because it’s part of the Barcelona philosophy as seen by the de jong and going for Phanic now.

Messi consistently gets to play for a team with a style of football that suits him to a tee, consistently getting loved for a wonder goal against bloody getafe or some team leganes. It’s the same shit playing for the same team.

Who would be better for a Mourinho Chelsea team? Messi or Ronaldo?

You say Messi out of pure speculation, I say Ronaldo because he did it.

Failure upon failure happens when players transfer leagues - I mean we just saw Hazard to Real Madrid look like a 100mil flop.

we can pretend that Messi has the guarantee of doing good - but the fact that Ronaldo did it and won things for/with Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and Portugal is enough for a lot of us to call him our goat.

Messi on the other hand hasn’t won anything for Argentina, has hardly won crap for Barcelona ever since the football of Xavi and Iniesta retired and left him.
 
How can one argue with that level of knowledge. :lol:

“Pre-assists”, you’re rapidly becoming a caricature on here.

DK indeed.

When you're playing against a low block like the best teams do the majority of the time the pass before the assist are often what makes the goal happen. Half of Barca's entire offensive strategy over the last 10+ years have been to find a runner (often the FB) behind the defence who looks to square the ball inside for someone to score, and surprisingly enough they couldn't do that if they didn't have players who could play that pass that opens up the entire defence.

I don't get why so many seem to believe that football doesn't happen outside the box, it's apparently just some nonsense going on that doesn't matter and then the hero magically gets the ball and scores.
 
I'm not sure what you are laughing about. Normally multiple players are involved in a goal so goals/assists are almost never the complete picture. Case in point: Pogba vs Germany.

No shit.

What a revelation, same goes for the post above.

I’m laughing that anyone thinks they have any idea of how many “pre-assists” Gaz Nev, Pirlo, KDB, Fernandinho, Kroos, Scholes, Cantona, Dalglish, Pele, Maradona, Bergkamp, Best, Charlton, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Cryuff, Gullit, Iniesta, or any player in history were involved in, and how many of these “pre-assists” were actually something a bit special to open up a team. It’s pure speculative drivel.
 
Last edited:
and your telling me that teams have not destroyed Messi?

Messi has played with one of the tactically dense teams of all time - the same team That went and portrayed their brilliance when Spain won world and euro cups.

yet consistently it is Messi who gets the praise apparently for that period which is just straight bizarre. He was the icing on the cake rather than the main ingredient.

The further Barcelona go from that period (Iniesta and xavis retirement) the further they are to even to the basicof successes.

Even after they left they still have the ability to play possession football because it’s part of the Barcelona philosophy as seen by the de jong and going for Phanic now.

Messi consistently gets to play for a team with a style of football that suits him to a tee, consistently getting loved for a wonder goal against bloody getafe or some team leganes. It’s the same shit playing for the same team.

Who would be better for a Mourinho Chelsea team? Messi or Ronaldo?

You say Messi out of pure speculation, I say Ronaldo because he did it.

Failure upon failure happens when players transfer leagues - I mean we just saw Hazard to Real Madrid look like a 100mil flop.

we can pretend that Messi has the guarantee of doing good - but the fact that Ronaldo did it and won things for/with Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and Portugal is enough for a lot of us to call him our goat.

Messi on the other hand hasn’t won anything for Argentina, has hardly won crap for Barcelona ever since the football of Xavi and Iniesta retired and left him.

has hardly won crap? He won as many league titles as Ronaldo has since xavi and Iniesta left. You could say Ronaldo hasn’t won crap since he left the best midfield in the world Real Madrid had by that logic.

and those World Cup and euro winning teams Didn’t just have Barca players, they had plenty of Real Madrid ones as well. The teams Ronaldo left went on to go to a CL final or win the league (United) as well as win trophies (Madrid) Ronaldo took them to amazing heights, but seeing what has happened to Ronaldo at Juventus we can see how much he underestimated his supporting cast getting bounced by far inferior teams who fail to even make the CL Final. These aren’t even CL title winning teams, we are rooming minnows from Portugal and France. To even include Juventus which won 9 serie A in a row is laughable, if anything they went from 2 CL finals in the previous 3 years Ronaldo joined to getting bounced in CL earlier than ever. As for Madrid, since Ronaldo left it’s painfully obvious he needed Madrid for more than Madrid needed him. They needed each other but I’ll take what Madrid has managed to do despite all the injuries they’ve been wrecked with compared to a massively underperforming Juve side.


I’d argue Ronaldo was the icing on the cake just as much as Messi was. I don’t think Barca win any CL’s from 2009-2015 without Messi. And those teams included xavi and Iniesta. Messi had some phenomenal teammates back in the day, but so did Ronaldo. Ronaldo hasn’t won “crap” as you put it if you want to diminish league titles where Ronaldo fared rather poorly at la liga with just 2 league titles in 9 years. Madrid already won half as many as soon as he left while Juventus had their lowest points in a decade after he joined. Not even blaming Ronaldo for that, but even he needs world class players beside him for things to happen. Hell, Pepe was the best player for Portugal in the last Euro and even Ronaldo would admit that. The only difference between him and Messi in the international stage was Eder scored where Higuain didn’t. Ronaldo has as many goals as Messi does in international finals.

They are both phenomenal players but to win CL you need other people to step up. Ronaldo was painfully mediocre more often than not in the CL final (he’s had more mediocre matches on that stage than good ones) but Bale, Benzema, and Ramos stepped up. Which isn’t to discredit anything Ronaldo did to help his teams get there which of course he deserves a lot of credit for. But it’s no surprise when the teammates don’t do squat for either player, CL becomes a pipe dream.

Even Maradona in ‘86 had a lot more help than the narrative would have you believe.
 
No shit.

What a revelation, same goes for the post above.

I’m laughing that anyone thinks they have any idea of how many “pre-assists” Gaz Nev, Pirlo, KDB, Fernandinho, Kroos, Scholes, Cantona, Dalglish, Pele, Maradona, Bergkamp, Best, Charlton, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Cryuff, Gullit, Iniesta, or any player in history were involved in, and how many of these “pre-assists” were actually something a bit special to open up a team. It’s pure speculative drivel.

It's probably because we weren't sat over the internet nitpicking every detail to determine who the best/greatest player was of those. Like in the past Pelé vs Maradonna was the conversation. But if you just go by trophies, goals and assists then easily Pelé hands down. With Messi and Ronaldo goals and trophies are more even, so we have to go absolutely mental and dig up all metrics.
 
Last edited:
I'm pretty sure if we swapped Xavi, Iniesta, Modric, and Kroos with Tom Cleverly and Fred that Messi's and Ronaldo's trophy cabinet would be a bit different which isn't really a revelation in a team game.
 
With Messi and Ronaldo goals and trophies are more even, so we have to absolutely mental and dig up all metrics.

Or… instead of pretending we have historical information that we clearly don’t, we could just say “I prefer this guy” and appreciate that both have an incredible claim to be the best two players to ever play the game?
 
Or… instead of pretending we have historical information that we clearly don’t, we could just say “I prefer this guy” and appreciate that both have an incredible claim to be the best two players to ever play the game?

It's certainly something that people who don't waste time arguing over the internet would do.
 
Love how superior people think they are during a debate, fun thread to read.
 
Iniesta was a far better player than Juan Mata, yet Mata has a better goals and assists per game ratio than Iniesta.

You would be absolutely laughed at if you suggested Mata was the better player. Many players have better goals and assists ratios than Iniesta but he is still one of the best players of the last 30 years.

My point is goals and assists are not the only way to judge a player. Remove goals and assists from Messi and Ronaldo (because they are pretty even in this regards) and only judge them by everything else, then Messi is miles ahead of Ronaldo. So is Cruyff, Maradona and Platini etc.

If stats are the only way of deciding who a better player is then Rooney was better than Maradona, Platini and Cruyff, but that is ridiculous to suggest.
 
Last edited:
Iniesta was a far better player than Juan Mata, yet Mata has a better goals and assists per game ratio than Iniesta.

You would be absolutely laughed at if you suggested Mata was the better player. Many players have better goals and assists ratios than Iniesta but he is still one of the best players of the last 30 years.

My point is goals and assists are not the only way to judge a player. Remove goals and assists from Messi and Ronaldo (because they are pretty even in this regards) and only judge then by everything else, then Messi is miles ahead of Ronaldo. So is Cruyff, Maradona and Platini etc.

If stats are the only way of deciding who a better player is then Rooney was better than Maradona, Platini and Cruyff, but that is ridiculous to suggest.

I think parts of it is the glory aspect. The strength of the opponents, what it led to(trophies), quality of the goals, consistency. Ronaldo's natural overall game has been pretty good over his career. His playmaking abilities and dribbling just hasnt been goat level, but he built his role and game towards not being reliant on them either. But yeah take away Ronaldos goals and he's behind some greats, but goals win you games and thats what built his game around.
 
Iniesta was a far better player than Juan Mata, yet Mata has a better goals and assists per game ratio than Iniesta.

You would be absolutely laughed at if you suggested Mata was the better player. Many players have better goals and assists ratios than Iniesta but he is still one of the best players of the last 30 years.

My point is goals and assists are not the only way to judge a player. Remove goals and assists from Messi and Ronaldo (because they are pretty even in this regards) and only judge then by everything else, then Messi is miles ahead of Ronaldo. So is Cruyff, Maradona and Platini etc.

If stats are the only way of deciding who a better player is then Rooney was better than Maradona, Platini and Cruyff, but that is ridiculous to suggest.

Messi = Mozart
Ronaldo = Salieri
 
I personally believe Ronaldo is the greatest player of all time – but happy to acknowledge people have different opinions.

Despite their overall stats being so similar and at the same time completely unprecedented – which demonstrates the exceptional levels both of these have reached – I will always argue that the fact Ronaldo has achieved all he has across three different leagues as being hugely significant. People can speculate how Messi would fare in the Premier League, but it is just speculation.
Using those very same metrics Pep, Jose and possibly even Ancelotti would be considered greater than Ferguson.

The greatest is the greatest whether they played/managed in 1 league, 2 league's or 40.

And Messi failing in the PL is so unlikely it's not even worth the discussion, he's torn apart the best this country has to offer on multiple occasions averaging in or around a goal a game against them, the idea he would have got found out at the Stadium of Light and Turf Moor is fantasy land stuff at best.
 
Using those very same metrics Pep, Jose and possibly even Ancelotti would be considered greater than Ferguson.

The greatest is the greatest whether they played/managed in 1 league, 2 league's or 40.

And Messi failing in the PL is so unlikely it's not even worth the discussion, he's torn apart the best this country has to offer on multiple occasions averaging in or around a goal a game against them, the idea he would have got found out at the Stadium of Light and Turf Moor is fantasy land stuff at best.

Messi wouldn't have failed in the Premier league - obviously he'd still be amazing. That's not to say there isn't a chance he'd have been less effective though. Playing in a different team with a different style and with potentially less agreeable teammates might've stunted his output a bit. Being forever at Barcelona has definitely helped Messi be the best he could possibly be.
 
Has anyone ever changed their mind on who is great?

Has a Messi fan ever changed their mind to think Ronaldo is better or has a Ronaldo fan thought that Messi is better?
 
Innit :lol: seeing a lot of posters act all superior because they have an appreciation for players who pass before the goal as if that is some massive revelation that only they know about. :lol:

Better to have an appreciation of it rather than trying to ridicule it as a nonsensical argument, which has been done before in this discussion.

Has anyone ever changed their mind on who is great?

Has a Messi fan ever changed their mind to think Ronaldo is better or has a Ronaldo fan thought that Messi is better?

I thought Ronaldo was better until around 2009-2010 when I started watching more of La Liga.
 
Using those very same metrics Pep, Jose and possibly even Ancelotti would be considered greater than Ferguson.

The greatest is the greatest whether they played/managed in 1 league, 2 league's or 40.

And Messi failing in the PL is so unlikely it's not even worth the discussion, he's torn apart the best this country has to offer on multiple occasions averaging in or around a goal a game against them, the idea he would have got found out at the Stadium of Light and Turf Moor is fantasy land stuff at best.
Thats not there same thing though, Fergie had won similar amount of trophies of Pep, Jose, Ancelotti combined. you need to look at the whole thing, not just one metric. At least that's what I usually do. Saying that I view both of them more or less equal in GOAT standing.
 
Messi wouldn't have failed in the Premier league - obviously he'd still be amazing. That's not to say there isn't a chance he'd have been less effective though. Playing in a different team with a different style and with potentially less agreeable teammates might've stunted his output a bit. Being forever at Barcelona has definitely helped Messi be the best he could possibly be.

I could just never see a right time for Messi to move. He was already at his dream club since he was 14. If he transfered to the PL while Ronaldo was at Madrid, he'd be accused of running away from the Ronaldo rivalry. And then what would have been the step up from Barcelona? Man Utd after Fergie? City? Chelsea? Anyway if he should have done it probably should have been after Ronaldo left, but then he won the Ballon D'or in the following season. Perhaps he should have left after that season, but then I can't really see much else than plastic options + him being past his prime.
 
Thats not there same thing though, Fergie had won similar amount of trophies of Pep, Jose, Ancelotti combined. you need to look at the whole thing, not just one metric. At least that's what I usually do. Saying that I view both of them more or less equal in GOAT standing.

Not sure if you made a typo but Fergie hasn't won the combined trophies of all those managers. But Fergie could have been a journeyman and managed Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern etc if he wanted to, but he didn't and is still considered by many as the greatest of all time despite the other managers being succesfull in different teams and leagues.
 
Not sure if you made a typo but Fergie hasn't won the combined trophies of all those managers. But Fergie could have been a journeyman and managed Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern etc if he wanted to, but he didn't and is still considered by many as the greatest of all time despite the other managers being succesfull in different teams and leagues.
Its not a typo, he really has.

Fergie: 49 trophies
Pep: 31 trophies
Mourinho: 13 trophies
Ancelotti: 8 trophies
 
I could just never see a right time for Messi to move. He was already at his dream club since he was 14. If he transfered to the PL while Ronaldo was at Madrid, he'd be accused of running away from the Ronaldo rivalry. And then what would have been the step up from Barcelona? Man Utd after Fergie? City? Chelsea? Anyway if he should have done it probably should have been after Ronaldo left, but then he won the Ballon D'or in the following season. Perhaps he should have left after that season, but then I can't really see much else than plastic options + him being past his prime.
Do we really need to think that far? Both literally played in the same league so we can use the same metrics. Surely if Ronaldo is the superior player then he would have outshone Messi during his time at La liga and vice versa
 
Status
Not open for further replies.