Messi outlasted the Ronaldo rivalry and is now up against Lewandowski. I think he has the better longevity contrary to what was said here alot of times
Messi v Ronaldo | Contains double your daily salt allowance
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I doubt Messi will be prolific at 35 or 36. He's yet to pick up his psg form.
I agree with the reasoning and why it might have actuated his insecurity. If Golden State manage to win again (and they're among the favourites), then they will have done it prior to KD joining and afterwords, bookending the two titles they won with him. The narrative has already changed, and if that scenario plays out, its only getting concretised. Can you imagine Durant's reaction in that case?
He’s gonna be livid! And even angrier at Kyrie…..
No wonder his online army and fanboys/girls are going absolutely ballistic here. What a great role model, what great mental strength, what a sour grape
That's what immediately came to mind. Melting down that way is a loser's mentality. And a distinct lack of mental strength.
It's because in Ronaldo's mind he is the greatest ever but Messi keeps nicking the awards which means he has to live in cognitive dissonance.
yes it is oddly enough
I don’t think this at all. I think that deep down he knows he’s not the greatest ever. No one who truly believes that they are the greatest ever would behave like he does.
Such an underwhelming Balon Dor win
You aren’t the king if you have to tell everyone you’re the king
deserved
Indeed
Dunno. Don’t put too much stock in La Liga in 2021 to be honest.
The best player in the world is playing in either Chelsea, City or Liverpool but it’s hard to differentiate when they’re surrounded by excellent players in fantastic team set ups.
Maybe if Salah took a step down to Barca he would stand out more.
There’s no player playing for any of those teams who could be considered the best player in the world, apart from Salah. However, they do probably have the three best managers in the world, which is why they are the best teams.
Aged hell of a lot in 3 months 
Copa America is what won it for Messi
and no chelsea or city player is the best player in the word, you’re just trolling
Just because Ronaldo gets benched these days for being a tactical liability doesn’t mean you need to rip him apart. He’s 37 come on now. Yeah, he can’t score against top 5 teams lately but you can’t be ripping on him for aging.Aged hell of a lot in 3 months
haha
Well.. Just the Copa America was won couple months ago - enough for many to think he deserves the Balon'dor.
Literally 3 months later in a different club, league, style of football against and for him - he looks,
Well,
Different.
We all told you guys ages ago.
Not every player is so adapting and consistent with their flexibility.
Just off the top of my head, Henry and Hazard are a shadow of their former selves when moving league, going from the best in that league to something else.
No way am I saying Messi is that level exactly- but some of us knew Barcelona benefited Messi just as much as Messi benefited Barcelona.
This post is going to look even more hilarious when he wins a shedload more trophies with PSG in 2022. Keep hoping though…..
And it shouldn’t have. How am I trolling? Messi himself shows how hard it is to go to a team who passes to you no matter what to a team who have stars confident enough to take it on themselves.
Grealish is a great example. Fantastic at Villa because he got the ball no matter what position he was in. At City he gets less of it and isn’t indulged so gets lost in the pack.
Same with Messi in PSG. At Barca you can stroll around, have player in better positions cut back and give you the ball anyway. A man of Messis talents will use that ball very well but the team results will suffer. Stand around at PSG and you get bypassed.
In better teams such as the top 3 English sides, the team becomes paramount but those teams also have some of the best players in world football who would stand out a lot more if they were in lesser sides themselves.
Who does this Messi displace in any of those sides that doesn’t make them worse? The Balon Dor winner? Ronaldo got benched v Chelsea despite having 10x the performances than Messi so far. That’s the standard.
If he did then I can shut up because he would have proven to me to be the best by then.
That's why I'm not too aggressive with Ronaldo vs Messi as I used to be, partly because all he needs with the PSG quality is to score a goal in the UCL Final and be the reason PSG won their first UCL.
Either way, if that happens then I've got no reason to doubt Messi as much He did it for other clubs under different styles of football for and against.
Doubting Lionel Messi is a very dangerous game. But then again, the exact same thing is true of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Well the guy and his agent made up an award for himself in Dubai (Globe Soccer Awards), so scrolling some instagram post for some validation shouldn't be too crazy for him.
True, but all time records are big individual achievements too. People talk about Pele career goal record, Di Stefano CL record etc all the time in the past, more so than Cruyff or Beckenbauer Ballon D’or records. Now all these big all time records belongs to Ronaldo.
Imagine if Ronaldo have all the individual awards records over Messi too, perhaps it wouldn’t be fair. I think now it’s about right, Messi has the most of the individual awards record, Ronaldo has most of the all time goal records.
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Well depends how you see this. First of all, Ronaldo is 2 years older, and as of current, it’s clear that Ronaldo at 36 with Man Utd > Messi at 34 with PSG. Then of course, back in 2018, Messi only finished 5th in Ballon D’or, when Ronaldo was up against Modric.
I'm not saying Balon D'or isn't worth it because that just sounds like something I'm saying to back Ronaldo once he is second - but ultimately Balon D'or is just a couple of journalist voting for who they think the best is.
Then you have the other things - the all time trophies, the all time goalscorer, the most CL Goals and trophies, the most assists, the International football records - whoever that is will be useful in making people's own mind about who is the best - not just one extra balon D'or right?
It's stats and data.
Well, people is overlooking Lewandowski because how good is Bayern Munich as a team.
But let's not forget that with the likes of Ribery,Robben, Müller, and Schweinsteiger they lost a couple of Bundesliga titles, plus they lost a final to a horrible Chelsea managed by interim Di Mateo and another one to Inter with Mourinho.
I do believe that Lewandowski plays a huge role in how successful Bayern has been, they could have beaten PSG the last year if he wasn't injured.
Bayern 9 titles in a row run started when they snatched Lewandoski from Dortmund.
I'm sure that once Lewandowski, Müller and Neuer retire, Bayern will miss a couple of Bundesliga titles again, and won't look very dominant.
Exactly. No doubt Ballon D’or is huge recognition of players’ standing among peers, but historically speaking, those all time records are just as big. Ultimately speaking, Ballon D’or are based on opinions, all time records are based on facts.
And to be fair, opinion wise, Messi always have an edge over Ronaldo throughout their playing career, so with him winning more Ballon D’ors, is quite fair results to be honest, in terms of the fact it is an opinion-based awards.
As seen by the votes here themselves. The edge of opinion is on Messi. Let's just see who carries the stats and data once they all finish.
Not really. There's a reason Ronaldo repeatedly and publically talked about his biggest goal being the Balón D'or récord. And that's out of reach because Messi has now left him in dust.
The 2 most important records for Ronaldo were the Balón D'or and the golden shoe.
Balón dors: Messi 7 and Ronaldo 5
Golden Shoe: Messi 6 and Ronaldo 4
League top scorer awards: Messi 8 Ronaldo 5
Goalscoring peak: Messi 91 and Ronaldo 69
international POTT: Messi 3 and Ronaldo 0.
And Ronaldo can't reach Messi in any of those. So he'll have to be content with the little stuff such as cumulative goals. But it appears that he isn't content at all, hence his meltdowns on Instagram now that Messi locked up his 7th Balón D'or.
"For him" is the key word. For any normal human being, it's more than a little crazy. It's one thing for his fanboys online to be obsessed about Messi; it's another thing entirely for Ronaldo himself to obsecrate for the approval of random people online. He isn't handling Messi's balón d'or sin very well, is he?
I know, but like it or not, Ronaldo still have other major all time individual records, which would be talked for many years to come.
Career goal: Ronaldo 799 Messi 756
CL goal: Ronaldo 140 Messi 123
International goal: Ronaldo 115 Messi 80
WC + Euro/Copa goal: Ronaldo 21 Messi 19
CL top scorer awards: Ronaldo 7 Messi 6
Especially career goal and CL goal record, it would be very stupid to suggest anyone in football history would not be content holding those. Pele and Di Stefano, 2 of the GOAT, took their greatest pride on holding each those records for years. And now Ronaldo is the sole owner of all those big records.
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Like it or not, those don't matter (certainly to Ronaldo himself) as much as the important ones which preponderate the others by a large margin. There's a reason Ronaldo is ranting like a lunatic online despite having those other glorious records. He lost the important ones.
Whatever happens, Messi owns the records Ronaldo values the most. The Balón D'or race is dead.
With all due respect, Ronaldo also owns the club trophies and competition Messi values the most (CL). Even if he manage to win 1 more for PSG, he still only won it 3 times for Barca as key player (and once as bit part sub player). So the race is probably dead too.
Luckily for Ronaldo he has stellar longevity otherwise Messi would catch him in total goals.
Messi doesn't care. His biggest goal was to win a major international tournament with Argentina, and he did while winning player of the tournament and leasing it in goals in assists.
Ronaldo's biggest goal, on the other hand, in his own words) is the Balón D'or. And Messi just left him in dust there.
Im firmly on camp Messi but lets not pretend Ronaldo puts individual awards above trophies with teams. I 100% guarantee if you ask him whats he's won that means the most to him, its the Euro's with Portugal, followed by Nations League followed by club trophies over individual awards. Same for Leo, I'm sure they both strive to win the bdo but its not as important as trophies. Though I am open to being proven wrong with Ronnie saying his priority is the BdO
He has the better goals per game ratio, assists per game ratio, goal scoring peak, golden shoes, domestic top scorer awards. The cumulative totals can be left for Ronaldo because he isn't catching Messi in any of the other ones.
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