Old-fashioned football types would strongly consider mental tough-ness and will to win. CR7 is levels above Messi for the ability to motivate and carry his team to victory. For that reason, the number of trophies do matter. I’ve watched Messi’s head drop countless times in key games when the chips are down, especially with Argentina.
Messi v Ronaldo | Contains double your daily salt allowance
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Old-fashioned football types would strongly consider mental tough-ness and will to win. CR7 is levels above Messi for the ability to motivate and carry his team to victory. For that reason, the number of trophies do matter. I’ve watched Messi’s head drop countless times in key games when the chips are down, especially with Argentina.
This is why Pele is the greatest player of all time.
Yet strangely, Messi has more club and individual trophies than Ronaldo. Not sure how that happened with Ronaldo doing all that ‘willing.’
Not really though, because everything that they will be judged on has already happened and everyone has already made up their minds on who they think is better. Only the World Cup could make a significant difference at this stage.
I mean it’s all semantics, isn’t it? Obviously the gap between Pele/Messi/Maradona and Ronaldo isn’t as great as the gap between Ronaldo and Steve Bull, but if you’re talking about their ability as footballers, there is a clear gap IMO.
Let’s dive deeper into your statement and compare the headline figures (35 vs 30 trophies) Wouldn’t you say that being part of an amazing team that revolutionised modern football at the start of your senior career (17) is a great head-start?
Ronnie was part of a weak Sporting team and joined us at the age of 18 when we were rebuilding our team.
Similarly, I expect Messi’s numbers to grow with PSG compared to Ronaldo with us. Therefore, considering the nuances, I consider them pretty much equal in that respect.
Since both were key to their club’s dominance, the glaring difference is their performances at International level, where they didn’t have super teams built around them in their prime. One could even argue that Messi was in the stronger team too. Here, Ronaldo’s mental attributes shine brighter.
Note that I’m focusing here on the mental side of things. They’re both at incredible levels but for me this is an area Ronaldo has demonstrated a higher level.
Also, IIRC didn’t Barcelona suffer major capitulations in the champions league under Messi’s leadership? Prior to that they had the likes of Puyol, Xavi and Iniesta.
The thing is - and this transcends title counts - I’ve noticed that when his team doesn’t perform in key games Messi’s head tends to go down too.
Maradona’s comments encapsulates my view on Messi succinctly.
https://www.espn.com.sg/soccer/arge...ader-he-goes-to-toilet-20-times-before-a-game
The thing is - and this transcends title counts - I’ve noticed that when his team doesn’t perform in key games Messi’s head tends to go down too.
Maradona’s comments encapsulates my view on Messi succinctly.
https://www.espn.com.sg/soccer/arge...ader-he-goes-to-toilet-20-times-before-a-game
There's a lot that goes into making a footballer great than just their ability with the ball at their feet. If that was all there was to it then Ronaldo wouldn't be in the conversation. The other aspects of his game, his athleticism,, his movement, his heading, his ambidextrousness are all well above Messi's level.
20 times
Ronaldo enjoyed peak Ramos,Bale,Benzema,Modric,Kroos,Varane,etc at Madrid...sure Messi's Barca still a better team but Ronaldo was surrounded by top players too, you can notice the difference in the UCL games with Juventus, he was nowhere near to reach a UCL final(knocked out by Ajax,Lyon, and Porto) and individually looked way worse than with Real Madrid.
Messi won UCL with different teammates btw
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Depends how you define ability as footballers.
For example, there are abilities which could directly impact the game, Ronaldo maybe considered as equal or even better than the other 2 or 3 of them:
finishing, heading, long shots, penalty, movement, athleticism, pace/acceleration, tricks/technical, determination/composure etc
But there are also other abilities as footballer, he could be behind the 2 or 3 of them:
dribbling, ball control, passing, vision, creativity, flair, agility, balance etc
But what makes Ronaldo being regarded as one of GOAT, is his unmatched/unrivalled no. of goals, CL, ballon D'ors, individual records and consistency/longetivity throughout his career.
Goals > everyone in terms of overall numbers at top level (similar level to Pele, Messi, Muller, Puskas etc in terms of peak period)
CL > everyone (similar level to Di Stefano in terms of domination in different era)
Ballon D'ors > everyone except Messi (or Pele, if Ballon D'ors rules applies to old times)
Individual records > everyone
consistency/longetivity = Messi > everyone
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Never disputed that, hence the comparison with their performances on the international stage with lesser players. Again, I’m commenting on the mental side of things.
Ronaldo have also won the UCL with different clubs so I don’t quite understand your point.
I’ve shared my concern in another thread regarding Ronnie’s last season at Juve. I caught a few games at the tail end and it was not Ronaldo-esque. That Porto game in particular stands out. We’ll find out whether it’s because he felt betrayed by his club, suffering the effects of Covid, or just an overall drop in ability due to age.
That said, it’s because his mental attributes are so off the charts that this gets called out.
If it were Messi, we would just shrug our shoulders because without a strong leader, he’s known to go missing in key games when the chips are down. TBH i caught the Copa America final and don’t think he had much of an influence in it. He also choked at the end to seal it for Argentina:
I’m quite surprised that enough people believe that Messi’s mental attributes (influence, determination etc.) are superior to Ronaldo’s.
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Absolutely rubbish.
Messi at Man City and Ronaldo at United.
Would have been simple to watch in the toughest league in the world.
Just like Neymar, the players that played in La Liga Barcelona with a cigar in their mouth in the burning sunlight ended up moving to France, with another cigar in the mouth.
Easy peasy. Xavi, iniesta and Busquets is arguably the best midfield 3 of all time. As soon as they started deteriorate bit by bit - so did Messi's ability to win things for Barcelona.
Like the game when Utd were 0-2 down in Rome and Ronaldo did nothing and Messi scored a goal.
Or the game when Messi dribbled past half the Madrid team to score while Ronaldo was on the pitch
Or the game when Madrid’s hope of La Decima was dying and it was Ramos to the rescue with a 93rd minute equalizer and Bale who put them ahead in ET, before Ronaldo took a pen at 3-1 and took his shirt off to pose like a tit.
The simple fact of the matter is both of them played in super team and won CLs when they had the better team/manager surrounding them, football being a team game after all. Both have big games where they’ve shine or gone missing, so nebulous argument about ‘mentality’ is just a facade for blind partisanship.
A majority of the football world has always considered Messi the better player, because he is. Sports would be pretty useless if all we get out of it is stats, which Messi still outperformed Ronaldo, in any case.
Messi's mental attributes are probably weaker than Ronaldo's, but as a footballer Messi is still better.
I'm not gonna judge Ronaldo's achievement with Portugal at WC, because Portugal have always been very underwhelming as national team (except 1966 and 2006), i bet they will crash against the first decent/strong team they face in 2022.
However international football are just a few games a year, hard to judge a player career based on 7 games per year (wether qualifiers or WC).
At club level, where the consistency is shown, Messi have been better.
I think he is simply ageing and no longer has the same level of impact to influnece/win games on his own in every crucial moment/games. His CL game against Porto is on his own poor display and was a big disappointment. But he still score many crucial goals for Juventus and Portugal throughout last season.
For example, he scored 29 goals in 33 league games for Juventus (36 goals in 44 games overall), in a slow and defensive setup, with no creativity from midfield, its actually quite difficult.
And I really think he did carrying Portugal on his own during the whole Euro tournament not long ago (5 goals 1 assist in 4 games, avg rating 7.92, the highest among all players in Euro from whoscored), I've never seen any other 36 yrs old being able to do that on the biggest stage in the past. Most often I feel its rather his teammates who let him down last season with Juventus or Euro with Portugal..
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They’ve both played a statistically significant number of games in major qualifiers and tournaments, regardless of how many games there are a year. Ronaldo has hard carried Portugal countless times despite their underwhelming team.
From a purely aesthetic POV Messi wins hands-down.
Deep down I suspect that to be the case but I’m hoping he finds his second wind for us. I believe in the impact playing/working in a positive environment can bring.
messi is getting a lot of stick for signing for psg but there is a lot of wisdom in joining a club that allows you to go and bang your sister every year at christmas time. when you’ve already won everything at club level sometimes the juiciest prizes lay outside of the game.
Well we have to be realistic, most footballer approaching his age would have already retired, or could not longer keep up at top level. But Ronaldo is still among the elites goalscorer, and still managed to match the outputs of very top forwards today such as Haaland or Mbappe, while still manage to outscore/outperform all other top strikers in Euro. Its not easy to do, its understandable he would have some off games occasionally at this age. Even Messi at 34 had some off games for Barca last seasons (poor early season form) and some off games for Argentina in Copa final (vs Brazil)
But I have no doubt he would easily score 30-40 goals for us this season, and may even win us trophy.
For what is worth Ronaldo winning the league with United it isn't a given, far from it. So there's already a lot more merit in him coming to United and cutting his salary to be able to play with them again, even if it's for his own ego. It's a far tougher competition but I don't expect United to walk the league, like I said don't think they're favorites (but still among the mix) so it might even be a bigger feat to win the league than PSG hypothetically winning the UCL. The only given is that PSG were super favorites to win the league with or without Messi and he's only going to be evaluated by what he does in the UCL.
Barcelona's and Juve's CL exits show as good as they are they both need a decent team around them, they can't elevate and carry as much as we'd like to think. They've also done their job in the league as usual but the team has come up short. Time has been good for the players that Messi/Ronaldo had success with.
United could do with some class in midfield but additions like Varane, Sancho will be key if we're to maximize on Ronaldo being here. We've seen many chances go begging via Rashford and Martial so it will be interesting to see how much Ronaldo can score. I'm not expecting as much as in Spain or Italy but at the same time we have potential to create even more and see many missed chances of the recent past get put away. Greenwood keeps looking better and should really add to the goals.
United could do with some class in midfield but additions like Varane, Sancho will be key if we're to maximize on Ronaldo being here. We've seen many chances go begging via Rashford and Martial so it will be interesting to see how much Ronaldo can score. I'm not expecting as much as in Spain or Italy but at the same time we have potential to create even more and see many missed chances of the recent past get put away. Greenwood keeps looking better and should really add to the goals.
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Of coursed not. PL is by far the toughest league in the world, we have to fight off City (best squad in the world), Chelsea (current CL winner) and Liverpool (best team in the world not long ago). I would say winning PL is as difficult as winning CL.
Yes, what I mean it would be a better achievement winning the league or UCL with United because of the competition in the League and even if he doesn't win the league with United going there to compete in the Premier League again is already something I admire in him.
The sports reporter on Sky News just opened their reporting by asking the regular Sky News host, "Where do you stand on the goat debate, Ronaldo or Messi?"
To which he responded, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Live TV at its very best.
To which he responded, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Live TV at its very best.
Vivaaaaa Rooooonaaaalllddoooooo
Well, yeah... It's not peak Cristiano Ronaldo anymore. It's not even post-peak Cristiano Ronaldo. He was already past his peak when he was winning those 3 CLs in a row and the Euros with Portugal.
As far as ability goes, the Messi and Ronaldo stories stopped being written quite some time ago.
It's kind of common sense that a team's competitiveness will dwindle if great players are replaced with medicore ones and great managers are replaced mediocre/shit ones. Messi has maintained his level throughout his prime pretty consistenly and is still past his prime a contender for the best player in world every year. Of course Messi hits his lower ceiling sometimes as well, but it's not really a shocker that a team will win less trophies if the overall quality of the team and manager declines.
It would be a pale imitation of something that has already happened: Barcelona v Real Madrid when both players were at the peak level of performance at a time when all the best players in the world played in Spain. They faced off like 30 times during that period. So what’s the point? As I said, it’s already happened and everyone has already made up their minds because we’ve all seen them when they were at their best.
By the way, Ronaldo seemed to lose his ability to win things without a midfield of Kroos, Modric and Casemiro. Especially Ballon D’Ors, which Messi has won post 30 without Xavi and Iniesta.
There is no area of the game in which CR7 is superior to Pele. Not one.
Even consistency/longevity, Pele played over 1300 games in 80 different countries (an extremely punishing schedule) and scored almost 1300 goals. As an attacking midfielder/number 10, not an out and out striker. There’s no comparison.
Well if you insist to use Pele to compare, very few could agree or disagree with you here, as most wasn't old enough witness his football week in week out like we do for modern players. There's no common ground to have detail in depth comparison, which means he may or may not be better in all areas, but you can't just compare fully players on limited footage with 90 mins week-in week-out football to give anything conclusive, unless the gap is so obvious.
But I wouldn't give much weight to those 1300 goals as you do, as many of them are unofficial goals in club friendlies, or at regional level. If you insist to count those whatsoever, you'd be surprise to find there were numbers of little known player who scored far more Pele in the list.
Also, Pele is a forward, in an era where many teams play a 424 attacking formation, he is not really an attacking midfielder in modern football sense, but more like a no.10 forward. Whereas Ronaldo starts his career as midfield winger (442), later moves to play as wing forward (433) for majority of his peak, and finally moves to no.9 position when he is approaching mid 30s (at the age where Pele already retired). Which means Pele was in relatively more advance position on the pitch for larger part of his career than Ronaldo, but maybe once they approach 30s, Ronaldo turns into poacher and become playing at more advance position.
Anyway here's the most common ranking of top goalscorer, namely:
- only top level (most relevant one)
- including regional/reserve/youth level (irrelevant one)
- including unofficial friendlies in regional/reserve/youth level (most irrelevant one)
Ranking of official goals at top level: (most relevant ranking)
1. Ronaldo - 783+ goals
2. Pele - 765 goals
3. Romario - 753 goals
4. Messi - 748+ goals
5. Puskas - 729 goals
Ranking of official goals including regional/reserve/youth level: (irrelevant ranking)
1. Helmchen - 982 goals
2. Bican - 948 goals
3. Rooke - 886 goals
4. Puskas - 806 golas
5. Ronaldo - 801+ goals
Ranking of all goals including unofficial friendlies, and regional/reserve/youth level (most irrelevant ranking)
1. Tichy - 1912 goals
2. Bican - 1812 goals
3. Helmchen - 1612 goals
4. Puskas - 1571 goals
5. Muller - 1483 goals
6. Bene - 1412 goals
7. Deak - 1370 goals
8. Pele - 1303 goals
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Everything is up to discussion. There are just some things which are clear as day despite people discussing it and among them is that Messi is a better football player than Cristiano Ronaldo, who's a ridiculously good footballer in his own right. He still has nothing on Messi individually. I think it will take a few years after his retirement to realize just how special Messi was. I really hope I'll see a comparable footballer during my lifetime again but right now I fear there's not even one at the horizon.
This is eye opening, you should consider going into coaching. Generations of players tirelessly working on their first touch, passing, ball control, anticipation, decision making etc. and all of them failed to realize that all they had to do was just 'wanting it enough'
What mentality are you talking about?
Where was Ronaldo's winning mentality in La Liga, the best league in the world then, winning 2 titles in 9 years vs Messi's 6? What kind of mentality is this bringing him one La Liga best player award in 9 years (the same number as Griezmann) vs Messi's 6 again in 9 years? Where was his mentality in CL with Juve (a team that played two CL finals in 3 years)losing against Porto, Ajax etc? What happened to his mentality in CL finals in 2014, 2016, and 2018 appearing as a ghost, always had to be saved by Ramos and Bale. As for their international careers, let me know what you think of his mentality considering the fact that his Portugal could not even go beyond the group stage in WC 2014 under the mighty USA . lost to Uruguay in 2018 as Euro winners, could not even go beyond the 2nd round in this Euro with a superior Portugal team. The guy was not even chosen a best player in an international tournament vs Messi's 3 (including World Cup)... so much mentality.....He was not even a part of the official best 11 of this EC despite scoring 5 goals for obvious reasons including 3 of them being penalty goals and the rest tap-ins.
Ronaldo lacks the ability to create, he needs to be spoon fed regularly to contribute therefore he does not impress most when watching unlike wizards like Cruyff, Messi, Zidane, Maradona, Ronaldinho etc.. That;s why, for most unlike Ronaldo fans, this is no debate..
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As if he would say no to PSG)) Checking Juve forums, it seems like Mendes was actively looking for a top team for Ronaldo all summer getting zero interest from Real, PSG, Chelsea etc.. He was not even a priority for City. City seems to have begun considering him after Kane rejection as a last minute option, it's what it is, a last-minute option....
It is funny that nobody is interested in explaining why he all of a sudden decided to leave Juve before his contract ended.. what happened to his famous professionalism & commitment leaving Juve very little time to look for a replacement? The guy is a serial opportunist. He decided to leave Juve in the last minute (after finally finding an exit opportunity) due to his dramatic CL & Serie A failures and probably due to Messi's transfer to PSG which must be very hard to digest for him along with Messi's upcoming 7th Ballon D'or.. The guy always looks for upgrades (United finished 2nd in PL last season) jumping from one ship to another that looks more promising and then leaves it to his “highly effective” PR machine to develop the narrative that he is going for a "new challenge")). As best upgrades have zero interest in him this summer, now the next thing to promote is his return to United due to his loyalty and that United is an inferior side)).. That’s how you develop another “new challenge” narrative considering his current situation.. You see how his PR team all of a sudden started talking about the merits of loyalty etc. when for years they have been accusing Messi of not leaving Barca...People consider players like Maldini, Baresi, Gerrard, Scholes,Totti, Xavi, Messi or Riquelme (due to his love for Boca) loyal and definitely not opportunists like Ronaldo) But, you’ll see the PR machine developing even more BS arguments as usual in the near future emphasizing how loyal Ronaldo is choosing United over City (as if he has another choice), how his heart has always been with United completely ignoring his Real transfer dramas, ethics linked to PSG owners (again as if he would say no to PSG if they gave him an offer) and how important that is for his standing in the football world..
As for Messi going to France where he's guaranteed silverware, your boy did exactly the same going to Juve where he's guaranteed to win silverware, yet with him, Juve had the worst season in the last 10 years just last year) PSG’s domination of the French league does not even come close to Juve’s recent domination of Serie A..
The real league challenge for Ronaldo was dominating La Liga when La Liga was the best in the world, and he failed miserably winning 2 in 9 years vs Messi's 6..He was chosen the best player only once in 9 seasons in the best league of the world vs Messi’s 6 meaning he failed miserably.. If anything, now he has another opportunity to prove himself in the current best league, the PL, and make up for his La Liga (which was then the best league in the world) misery..
As for Messi, it should be obvious to everyone at this point that the only thing Messi cares about at this stage is having another strong run at the CL and another final run with Argentina in the WC. I do not think that he cares about a French league title.. After all, he has been the king of La Liga, the best league in the world, for so long that league titles do not mean much to him...
Finally. Messi would still be called a total failure this season if he cannot win the CL but wins the French league.. If he wins the CL, then the argument would be “well, of course, he should easily win with a team like PSG”. Yet, when it comes to Ronaldo, if he can’t win CL or PL or even FA Cup, that’s all normal, not his fault as United is an “inferior” side) Get ready guys, that would be the BS argument (part of the new PR promotion along with the loyalty BS) that Ronaldo PR machine would make in case of a likely failure judging by his recent Juve adventure.. Now, you can clearly see which player is in a more challenging situation…
That's my point.
I am really not sure if anyone claiming that Ronaldo "carried" Portugal to the 2016 Euro has any actual recollection of the tournament.
The only argument to support this is that his mere presence was so distracting to opposition players that it allowed Quaresma Eder etc to score crucial goals.
He did score in the semi vs mighty Wales, though.
The only argument to support this is that his mere presence was so distracting to opposition players that it allowed Quaresma Eder etc to score crucial goals.
He did score in the semi vs mighty Wales, though.
Win us a league and a cl during this second spell Ronnie boy and you can have my vote
Messi 34 playing in the farmers league, Ronaldo 36 playing in the best league in the world, nuff said.
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