Gonzalo Higuain does not deem Juventus’ talisman Cristiano Ronaldo and FC Barcelona’s talisman Lionel Messi good enough to be rated among his best soccer players.
The 32-year-old Argentina forward who now plays for Major League Soccer club Inter Miami CF has played alongside the two football icons who have won a combined 11 Ballon d’Or between 2003 and 2019.
Gonzalo Higuain played with Lionel Messi in the Argentina national team for over a decade before the center-forward ran out of favor. While with the national team, Lionel Messi was seen as the talisman of the team even though Higuain had scored 31 goals in 75 games for the country.
On the other hand, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuain reunited at Juventus in 2019 after they both played together between 2009 and 2013 at Real Madrid. So, the Argentine football star knows the two football rivals well enough to be able to say how good they currently are.
From his perspective, Gonzalo Higuain decided to list Bayern Munich’s striker Robert Lewandowski, Real Madrid’s forward Karim Benzema, and Borussia Dortmund’s striker Erling Haaland as the best players that are currently playing the game excluding Messi and Ronaldo.
So far this season, Lewandowski has scored 13 goals and provided 5 assists in 11 games for Bayern, Karim Benzema has scored 6 goals and provided 3 assists in 11 games, while Erling Haaland has scored 11 goals and provided 3 assists in 11 games for Dortmund.
Ronaldo and Messi who Gonzalo Higuain did not include among the list of his best players this season have scored a combined 12 goals (6 for Messi and 6 for Ronaldo) and 5 assists (4 assists for Messi and 1 assist for Ronaldo) so far this season.
“Currently, for me, the best are Lewandowski, Haaland, and Benzema”, Gonzalo Higuain told ESPN when asked to mention his best players currently.
“Karim has been there for a long time, in the elite for 12 years”, Higuain added. “Lewandowski, where he played, scored and won. Haaland is a great promise, with a great future. He surprised me, he is a great striker.
“In history, we have Suárez, Lewandowski, Cavani, Benzema, David Villa, Ibrahimovic. And the best one who, ironically speaking, is in heaven: Ronaldo (Nazario). I always wanted to be Ronaldo, I always wanted to copy him.”
Though he did not mention Lionel Messi among his best players, he spared time to describe how magical his Argentine teammate is on the field of play.
“It’s magical”, he said. “Everything is natural. He was born that way, it’s in his DNA, he does everything effortlessly. Things that everyone has to fight for, Leo does them naturally That is what makes it unique. “
