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For the past five years, the same debate has raged tiresomely: who is better, Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi?
By now football fans should have adjusted to the fact that both are equally as good, despite their footballing and personality differences.
While the debate will never settle, the respectful conclusion should be to respect each player for what they bring to the world game.
Cristiano Ronaldo is a powerful athlete and is physically perfect for the modern game. The ambidextrous Ronaldo is blessed with speed, tricks (just see his back heel rainbow kick and subsequent goal in the El Clasico, making light work of Pique), phenomenal goal-scoring ability, a brilliant header and is a consummate professional who has only improved since his dominating days at Manchester United.
Lionel Messi is a wizard, of that much I am convinced. His dribbling ability, magnetic feet and ability to duck and weave into tight spaces, does not so much rip apart defences, it opens them up.
He doesn’t speed his way past them like Ronaldo, but somehow manages to expose the little space afforded to him and make the keeper suffer. If Ronaldo is the terminator, then Messi is the wizard.
This year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or will be a tight race, and for an organisation seen as less than transparent in recent times, one has to ask the question of its voting procedures should Ronaldo not win it after last season’s record breaking run.
Despite breaking goal scoring records and performing admirably in his second season with Real Madrid, he lost out to Messi who performed slightly inferior individually, but was a part of the winning team in the 2010-2011 season.
The recent 2011-2012 season saw Ronaldo score slightly less than Messi individually, but perform exceptionally well in the winning Madrid side, who broke the record for the most number of points accumulated in a single season.
While this writer believes Ronaldo should be treated the same, voting-wise, as Messi was previously, Messi winning for scoring more goals would be inconsistent with the approach to the 2010-2011 season.
So whether you agree or disagree with Ronaldo or Messi winning it, one needs to ask FIFA if the award is truly a measure of a football player’s individual season, or if it is a mere popularity contest. If it is indeed the measure of an individual season, then perhaps the team’s overall performance should hold less weight, and players such as Xavi, Ibrahimovic and Casillas should have a better chance to win.
The fact that neither Diego Milito or Wesley Sneijder won it during their World Cup and treble winning seasons says more about the voting criteria being a popularity contest, than it does a true measure of individual success.
FIFA needs to ensure that no matter who wins it this year, that transparency and objective evaluation of a player’s season takes priority, including the circumstances in which they performed. That way, players would not need to be signed to multi-billion dollar teams to have a running chance, and could prove themselves in less financially strong environments.
My vote goes to Ronaldo, for he scored at an alarming rate alongside Benzema and Higuain, and has been doing so seamlessly with Real Madrid ever since he made the switch.
He deserves it. A versatile, powerful and already-legendary player, despite some sections of the media stating he is arrogant (more of a myth now than anything), he should be judged as a footballer. After all, isn’t that what the FIFA Ballon d’Or is all about?
If we risk taking personality into account, then we lose what soul sport has left. The true measurement of success is created on the pitch, not in the media rooms and interviews.
Who do you think should win it? Ronaldo, Messi, or another outstanding player?
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