Manchester United and England national team legends David Beckham and Wayne Rooney have agreed that Argentine footballer Lionel Messi is better than Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo.
Their submission on this age-long debate came as a surprise because it came from two players who supposed to belong to the same camp with Cristiano Ronaldo.
The surprising part was the submission of Wayne Rooney who was a teammate of Ronaldo at Manchester United where the Portuguese football legend won his first World Best award.
Ronaldo is a killer
Rooney described Ronaldo has a killer especially when he is in the box eighteen but said Barcelona’s Lionel Messi tortures his opponents effortlessly unlike the power Ronaldo uses to play his games.
“Ronaldo wasn’t as focused on goals when we started playing together but you could see that all he wanted was to be the best player in the world”, Rooney told the Sunday Times.
“He practised and practised and began to produce. Cristiano has become an incredible scorer and he and Messi are arguably the best two players the game has seen.
“But despite my friendship with Cristiano, I’d go for Messi. It’s for the same reason I loved watching Xavi and Scholes: it’s the different things in Messi’s game. I’ve talked about composure and I can’t remember seeing Messi score when he has hit the ball as hard as he could. He just rolls them in, makes it so easy.
“Ronaldo is ruthless in the box, a killer. But Messi will torture you before he kills you. With Messi, you just get the impression he is having more fun. Those two have completely changed the game in terms of goalscoring numbers and I don’t think they’ll ever be matched.”
Messi is in a different class
While David Beckham who had also played for Real Madrid like Cristiano Ronaldo, says Lionel Messi is in a different class above Ronaldo. He, however, added that no footballer in the world is close to two of them.
“He [Messi] is alone in his class as a player, it is impossible that there is another like him,” Beckham told Argentine outlet Telam.
“He, like Cristiano Ronaldo, who is not at his level, are both above the rest.”
The assertion of these two football legends might not be enough to put an end to the age-long debate of who is better between Messi and Ronaldo.
They both have won 11 Ballon d’Or, in the last 12 years. Messi has 6 of that while Ronaldo has 5. Unlike Ronaldo who is 35-year-old, Messi, 32, still has more years ahead to still play active football.
But the argument against Messi is that he is a one-club man who has spent all his career in Barcelona. Another argument against him is that he has not been able to achieve much with the Argentina national team.
While the argument in favour of the Portuguese is that he has been able to prove himself in three world-class clubs in different major leagues – Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus.
Besides that, he has helped his country to win one UEFA European Championship and one UEFA Nations League.
