The current football climate demands a Highlander. This complex can be attributed to the nature of sports itself: the competition. There can only be one. Friction between forces and the resolution of it is at the heart of everything we love about it.
Someone has to win and someone has to lose, and even in the instances where there is a draw, one has to have played better than the other, or one becomes the moral victor. Draws are frivolous and unreasonable concepts. Combine that with the dogma that things are either the best or the absolute worst and we're confronted with quite the issue when it comes to appreciating certain stars. The Ballon d'Or doesn't help either.
Cristiano Ronaldo is unlike anything we've ever seen before. Certainly unlike anything the current generation has ever witnessed. The issue is that he shares the stage with Lionel Messi, who is, well, unlike anything we've ever seen before either. Their careers and worlds have revolved around each other for almost a decade now - being at rival teams doesn't help the situation either- and they've seemingly become the Castor and Pollux of the football world. They can never exist simultaneously. Or so it seems.
The constant debate and bickering over who is the better player always follows the same strain. Messi is better because he is the footballer's footballer, the more complete player: he scores a ridiculous amount of goals, creates chances on the same asinine level and can buzzsaw through a defence with his slithering dribbling skills and close control. There's not much in the footballing sense that he can't do.
Ronaldo's supporters will point to his fantastic goalscoring rate, the ability to finish with both feet and his head and the danger he poses from distance. The belief is that goals win games, Ronaldo is a goalscorer, there's no sense for him to waste energy in the creation of chances when he doesn't need to. There's other outfield players for that role. His job is to score and he does it better than anyone else. It's the fantasy of a minimalist.
It's as if we're comparing the processes of a painter and a sculptor. Michelangelo taught that sculpting was nothing but carving out and discarding. To get rid of the unnecessary and find the masterpiece beneath. To rid the canvas of superfluous elements, the empty dribbles, the cute passes, the ever-changing roles and find the legendary wide-forward underneath. That's what Ronaldo has done. Gone are the days of the Portuguese dribbling through an array of defenders before a shot. That's inefficient. He could just bid his time and make the perfect run as any one of the better creators on the team dissects the defence. Then the goal.
Messi then is the painter. The process that's centred around adding on and building. Better colours, smoother blending, highlights, deeper brush strokes, it goes on. Every year, it seems that Messi adds another weapon to his arsenal. From the long-haired, quicksilver, electric winger who scored the goal of the century against an undeserving Getafe side by dribbling past almost the entire team to the false nine of the Pep Guardiola era whose intelligence made him impossible to mark.
Even his current form, the right forward playmaker who is also a part-time centre-midfielder is just as wonderful. He's in constant flux, but controlled. And always adding more ways to disturb the defence: he's La Liga's and Barcelona's top goalscorer, he also has the most assists for both. He has the most dribbles in the Champions League, is battling for the all-time goalscorer award for the competition as well as the assists record. It's unfathomable. He's the perfect attacking player because he can do everything.
These two are just two different paths to the same goal. The team that gets the ball in the back of the net more wins the game. Each player has found ways that suit them and their teams in order to make that possible. One is not more beautiful than the other; it’s in the eye of the beholder. Both though, are fine art and deserve praise for the way that they've transcended our normal definitions of a world class footballer.
The argument of who is better comes down to bias or mere preference. The award wins fluctuate too much at this point. It's just, who do you like more? Which process do you prefer? The affinity for either does not make them the best, it just means that we're beyond reasonable arguments to determine the hierarchy. Either you're keener on Michelangelo's David or Leonardo Da Vinci's ‘the Last Supper’. Or you can just stop the struggle and appreciate them both.
