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Never before has there been such divide in the world of football. Ask any fan, any expert, anybody who their favourite is, who they believe is better or simply who they prefer, and you will never, ever reach consensus.
This speaks volumes. It is beyond sport.
Not since Maradona versus Pele has there been such a hotly contested debate about who the better player is.
But there is a stark difference with what we are blessed enough to witness here; both players are of the same generation competing against each other during their peak periods.
There is no cross-generational gap to try and cross; this golden era puts to shame the Jordan versus Lebron debate. This is better than Pele’s goal tally, this is better than Maradona’s Hand of God; this is Messi versus Ronaldo, Ronaldo versus Messi, and while this debate has raged for quite some time, it’s only going to get better.
An interesting observation divides these two icons and the fans battling it out behind them. On one hand, Cristiano Ronaldo epitomises everything that makes him the Hollywood jock: smart, talented, good-looking and rich beyond belief.
His athletic ability is sublime and to try and hold little Leo up to his standard is incontestable – Messi has his own gifts and talents, but not Ronaldo’s. Ronaldo jumps higher than the average NBA player, is as fast as a professional sprinter, and in eight seconds pulls an average of 13 moves (including step overs, spins and tricks) against his opponents.
Leading sports scientists even have trouble keeping up; in Tested to the Limit, the analysis needs to be slowed down to one third of its real time to even catch a glimpse of what he is doing.
His strength is evident in his defence-shattering free kicks. His ability to bend the trajectory of the ball as though an invisible object is deflecting it is second to none.
Such an athlete is Ronaldo, that you wouldn’t be surprised to learn he has three percent less body fat than a super model.
The former world player of the year dominated the English Premier League and straight into his debut season at Real Madrid, he began to score like it was going out of fashion.
He hasn’t got Xavi, Iniesta or any of the other superior Barcelona teammates around him, who have been training together for almost 10 years. He hasn’t got access to that machine of God-given talent, which is what makes him all the more better.
He has adapted frighteningly fast, has broken all-time scoring records and done it in style.
Messi is great, but would you bet on him performing to Ronaldo’s level in the English Premier League? Would you honestly put your hard-earned cash behind that? No, because just like Argentina you know that as great as Messi is, his exceptional success is directly attributable to the brilliant team that is Barcelona.
Remove Messi and plug in Drogba and they’ll still win – without the genius of Xavi and Iniesta, Messi can’t stand on his own.
Ronaldo relies on himself, on his own exceptional ability to consistently perform at the highest level, despite being hacked constantly by falling defenders, booed by the haters and hounded by the media.
His resilience is admirable, and at the end of the day, unless Messi can show he is adaptable and a true force in the sport of football, we all know that it is a massive argument-killer when it comes to his legacy.
If Argentina shows anything, it shows his inability to drag the team to victory the way Ronaldo has Sporting, Manchester United and Real Madrid.
The underlying argument is not about the national team in any case, the underlying argument is about each player’s ability to adapt to a different set-up, different players, different conditions, a different environment and a different competition.
Ronaldo at such a young age has already created a legacy that crushes Messi. The Argentine can peddle with Barca for as long as he wants, but until he stops playing it safe and shows his fans, his adversaries and the objective football spectator that he is more than a comfortable footballer riding the wave of a terrific La Liga team, he has brought nothing to the table in the true argument against Cristiano Ronaldo.
Imagine Ronaldo in Barcelona – with that set up, with those team players it’s frightening to think what the results would be.
But it’s impossible, Ronaldo is all for the challenge and not the easy option – although Barcelona tried to steal him away from Manchester United when Real Madrid were hot on his heels, he chose the challenge.
Rejecting Barcelona shows just what sort of character he is – brave, honest, good to his word and an athlete who thrives on difficulty – he won’t walk into a revolving success door to be a glory hunter, that’d be boring, that wouldn’t be a challenge, that wouldn’t be Cristiano.
People love Messi because he is perceived as the humble genius, the floppy haired little boy skipping around and smiling as he racks up a relentless number of goals.
Basically, Messi is what Disney encapsulates (aside from diving, spitting at other players, kicking balls into stadiums and elbowing opponents).
But people love Ronaldo because he is the complete footballer, the complete alpha male who doesn’t care what some stranger sitting behind a newspaper or a computer screen thinks of him.
He’s his own person and doesn’t play media politics. In other words, he’s the rebel of football- a James Dean whose apparent rival is the kid we hope scores the winning goal in the movies (set to the backdrop of a highly emotive film score).
When the tide settles a decade from now, there will still be a brilliant division among the legion of fans supporting the Portuguese prodigy and the amazing Argentine.
Despite arguments for or against, you have to admit it is an extremely privileged time to be alive watching two of the greatest footballers in history do their thing. Let’s hope Messi takes that long-awaited leap of faith into the English Premier League – then, and only then, can we settle this once and for all.
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