Today, two all time greats, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi will meet in the field of battle for the first time since May 2018. After slugging it out in Spain’s Premier Division for almost a decade before Ronaldo’s departure for Juventus in 2018, many football fans all over the world seemed ecstatic at the prospect of another head to head rivalry in the wake of the UEFA Champions League draw this season.
But football enthusiasts would see this expectation thwarted after the Portuguese star tested positive for COVID-19 less than two weeks before the first leg clash at the Juventus stadium.
Ronaldo and Messi have been widely regarded as two of the best football players of all time, with the debate on who nicks the other in talent and performance dividing the football world like never before.
So intense has been the debate regarding who the better player is that virtually none has taken out time to consider the striking similarities between the two football stars.
From the moment both youngsters could walk, they were obsessed with playing football. Both would risk everything in their quest to become great footballers, not because they were particularly brave or foolhardy – or both – but simply because neither had a “Plan B”. In their minds, there was no other choice. And no doubts either. Doubts kill dreams.
Ronaldo’s journey into the unknown began when, as a 12-year-old, he left Madeira for the first time, cardboard name tag around his neck, en route to Lisbon where he would play for Sporting and endure months of loneliness as team-mates made fun of his “hicktown” Madeiran accent.
The 12-year-old Messi wept as the plane flew out of his beloved Argentina for Spain. Unlike Ronaldo he was accompanied by his family – at least for the time being. In the end his overwhelming, uncompromising desire and unfaltering ambition would end up tearing his family apart.
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Ronaldo made his first-team debut with Sporting on 7 October 2002, aged 17 years, eight months and two days. Messi first appeared in Barcelona’s senior team at 16 years, four months and 23 days, coming on in the 75th minute during a friendly against Jose Mourinho’s Porto on 16 November 2003.
From the moment they made those first appearances both were considered certainties to become major players on the world stage.
Almost two decades in, the duo have gone toe to toe at the highest level of the game, establishing a duopoly that has left other football stars in an entirely different echelon, with 11 Balon D’or accolades serving as ample evidence to buttress this dominance.
In spite of the unmatched brilliance of the two players on the pitch for very many years, football fans have somewhat damaged their individual accomplishments with the ugly nature of ‘rivalry of the fans’. Fanaticism to a large extent has continued to threaten to miscue the trajectory of this beautiful fraction of football history.
Without a doubt, both players have in common a force of nature which makes them natural winners. But they also have dissimilarities too, points of divergence which make them unique and not necessarily as ineffective as some fans paint it to be.
While Messi has been widely criticized by Ronaldo’s fans for refusing to leave Barcelona to prove his mettle in other European leagues (which is quite a lame argument at best), Ronaldo has on the other hand been tackled for his penalty taking skills (an even lamer argument). Other times the Portuguese has been criticized for not setting up his teammates more often like his Argentinian counterpart.
Of course, both players are uniquely gifted, and have excelled tremendously by playing to their own individual strengths; and, regardless of the unfair criticism which has continued to sting the legacy of both players, one thing remains irrefutable, both have an uncanny ability to produce sterling results.
So, as the two geniuses go toe to toe again today, it would very well be to the benefit of the football world to appreciate the sheer brilliance of the two football maestros who have brought doubtless excitement to the game in lieu of seeking to taint golden legacies in the name of fanaticism.
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