Equal number of continental cups but only 1 of the 2 had reached the final of the world cup. No brainer for me
One had Aguero, Tevez, Higuain, Di Maria in attack, the other had Nani, Simao, Pauleta and Gomez (in the last 5 years, they essentially played without striker cause they don’t have one).
One had Cambiasso, Riquelme, Veron, Banega in the midfield, the other had Carvajlo, Moutinho and Deco when he was not good.
I guess Portugal had a better defense, but overall, Messi had far better teammates for Argentina.
Argentina was always one of top 2 favorites for Copa and in top 5 or so for World Cup. They also had won 2 World Cups and a dozen Copas, but in 15 years of Messi played with them, they won only one Copa and no World Cup (arguably their worst ever spell). Portugal on the other hand were never one of the favorites for any trophy, they usually are not in top 10 and almost never in top 5 countries in FIFA rankings, and had never won anything or reached a final. Yet, they won the Euros with Ronaldo captaining them, reached another final with him and reached a World Cup semis (joined best record in their history). They had their best spell in the history with Ronaldo.
So Portugal overachieved with Ronaldo, while Argentina underachieved. Both kinda reached the same results, but one had a far better team. To be fair, a lot of Argentina’s failure was to their FA for choosing shit managers. They essentially did not have a manager worth it since Pekerman (and back then Messi was still a kid), but it is not that Portugal were much better at it.