Messi–Ronaldo rivalry
The Messi–Ronaldo rivalry, or Ronaldo–Messi rivalry, is a sporting rivalry in football propelled by the media and fans that involves Argentine footballer Lionel Messi and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, mainly for being contemporaries and due to their similar records and sporting successes. They spent nine seasons in the prime of their careers facing off regularly while playing for rival clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid.
Together, they have achieved various historical milestones, coming to be considered as two of the best footballers of all time. They are two of the most decorated players ever, having won 80 official trophies in total during their senior careers thus far, and have regularly broken the 50-goal barrier in a single season. According to IFFHS, they are the only two players to score over 800 goals each in their careers for club and country. Ronaldo holds the record for most official goals in a career.
Journalists and pundits regularly argue the individual merits of both players in an attempt to establish who they believe is the best player in modern football or ever. Regardless of preference, football critics generally agree that they are both the best players of their generation, outperforming their peers by a significant margin. Ronaldo has received praise for his physical attributes, goalscoring skills, and impact across multiple leagues, while Messi is lauded for his combination of dribbling, playmaking and goalscoring. Some commentators choose to analyse the differing physiques and playing styles of the two, while part of the debate revolves around the contrasting personalities of the two players; Ronaldo is sometimes described as someone of temperamental character while Messi is considered to have a more reserved personality. Several commentators and players opined that Messi settled the debate after leading Argentina to victory at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, although many continue to view the rivalry as a matter of personal perspective and lasting legacy.
The rivalry has been compared to past global sports rivalries such as the Ali–Frazier rivalry in boxing, the Prost–Senna rivalry in motorsport, and the tennis rivalry between of Federer and Nadal.
History
Origins
In 2007, Ronaldo and Messi finished as runners-up to AC Milan's Kaká in both the Ballon d'Or, an award rewarded to the player voted as the best in the world by an international panel of sports journalists, and the FIFA World Player of the Year, an award voted for by coaches and captains of international teams. In an interview that year, Messi was quoted as saying that "Cristiano Ronaldo is an extraordinary player and it would be brilliant to be in the same team as him."They first played in a game against each other when Manchester United were drawn to play Barcelona in the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League semi-finals and were immediately pitted as major rivals. Ronaldo missed a penalty in the first leg, but United eventually advanced to the final via a Paul Scholes goal.
The 2009 UEFA Champions League final was contested between Manchester United and Barcelona on 27 May 2009 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy. The match, described as a "dream clash", was again hyped as the latest battle between the two, this time to settle who was the best player in the world. Ronaldo explained to always go out on to the field believing he is the best. "For me, you have to have that confidence at all times. That's what makes me the player I am." Messi's club-mate Xavi sided with his fellow Barcelona player: "Messi is the best player in the world by a distance, he's the No1." Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson was more diplomatic, praising both players as being amongst the world's elite talents. Barca successfully kept United at arm's length to win 2–0, with Messi scoring a rare header for his team's second goal.
El Clásico
On 11 June 2009, Manchester United accepted an offer of £80 million for Ronaldo to be transferred to Barcelona's El Clásico rivals Real Madrid. The transfer was confirmed on 1 July.From 2009 to 2018, the two played against each other at least twice per season during El Clásico matches but also met many other times in competitions such as the Copa del Rey, the Supercopa de España, and a two-legged Champions League semi-final in 2011. This period was the most competitive in El Clásico history, with both players being their clubs' all-time top scorers. The two players alternated as top scorers in La Liga and the Champions League during most seasons while they were with Real Madrid and Barcelona.
2009–10
In the first league meeting between the two players, on 29 November 2009, it was Messi's Barcelona who came out on top, winning 1–0 with a goal from Zlatan Ibrahimović. In the second El Clásico of the season, Messi scored his 40th goal of the season in a 2–0 win. Messi was said to have made a fool out of Ronaldo by the Spanish press, which claimed that Ronaldo's "reign in the football world has ended".2010–11
On 20 November 2010, the pair both scored hat-tricks on the same day for the first time; Ronaldo hit three goals against Athletic Bilbao in a 5–1 win, while Messi scored three as Barcelona thrashed Almería 8–0. The achievement was said to have proven why they are widely considered "the world's best players".The two players faced each other whilst representing their international sides for the first time on 9 February 2011, as Argentina played Portugal in a friendly in Geneva, Switzerland, their first meeting for 40 years. Both players were on the scoresheet, with Ronaldo scoring an equaliser and being substituted before Messi scored an 89th-minute penalty to win the game 2–1.
The two came face-to-face in four pulsating games in the season finale, and the fixtures were hyped as the definitive games as to which of the two was the better player. In the first game of the series on 16 April 2011, Messi scored a 51st-minute penalty to give Barcelona the lead until the 82nd minute, when Ronaldo scored a penalty of his own to give Real Madrid a share of the points. In the second game, the 2011 Copa del Rey Final, Ronaldo scored the only goal of the game in extra time to give Real Madrid a 1–0 win, and the club's first trophy under manager José Mourinho. The third game was the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. The match was ugly and ill-tempered, with Madrid's Pepe sent off and both Madrid's coach José Mourinho and Barcelona's substitute goalkeeper José Manuel Pinto sent to the stands, before Messi scored two goals, including one described as "one of the best goals in Champions League history", to give Barcelona a two-goal lead in the tie. Following the game, Messi was praised as both the current best in the world and amongst the greatest players of all time. Of the seven goals scored in the four games, Messi scored three and Ronaldo scored two.
2011–12
On 24 September 2011, both players scored a hat-trick on the same day for the second time; Ronaldo scored three in a 6–2 win against Rayo Vallecano, and Messi scored three in a 5–0 win over Atlético Madrid.Having been drawn against each other in the Copa Del Rey quarter-finals later in the month, Ronaldo scored a goal in each game, but Barcelona advanced 4–3 on aggregate.
On 21 April 2012, Ronaldo scored the winning goal in El Clásico as Real Madrid won 2–1 and closed in on the league championship.
2012–13
In the first El clásico of the season on 7 October 2012, both players scored twice in a 2–2 at the Camp Nou, the sixth straight match between the two clubs that Ronaldo had scored in. Ronaldo scored in the 23rd minute to put Madrid 1–0 in front, then Messi scored two either side of half-time to put Barcelona in the lead, but for only five minutes before Ronaldo scored a 66th-minute equaliser. Messi finished the calendar year of 2012 with an all-time record of 91 goals for both club and country, overtaking Gerd Müller's record of 85 goals.At the end of January, the players scored hat-tricks on the same day for the third time; Ronaldo scored three against Getafe as Real Madrid won 4–0 before Messi went one better by scoring four goals against Osasuna as Barcelona won 5–1. It was Ronaldo's 20th hat-trick and Messi's 200th career league goal. In the Copa Del Rey semi-final second leg, Ronaldo scored two goals to help Real Madrid advance to the final in a 3–1 victory. The goals meant he had scored in six consecutive El Clásico's at the Nou Camp.
2013–14
In September 2013, the players scored hat-tricks on the same Champions League matchday for the first time; Ronaldo scored three against Galatasaray as Real Madrid won 6–1, while a day later Messi scored a hat-trick against Ajax as Barcelona won 4–0. This latest accomplishment was said to "defy the accepted wisdom that football is a team game".In the second El Clásico of the season on 23 March 2014, Messi became the all-time top scorer in the fixture after he scored a hat-trick, including two penalty kicks, as Barcelona defeated Real Madrid 4–3, while Ronaldo also scored a goal from the penalty spot which initially put Real Madrid 3–2 in front; it was a match described as "astonishing", "thrilling" and "the best Clasico in recent years".
2014–15
At the start of the season, the race to beat Raúl's Champions League goal scoring record of 71 goals dominated the headlines, with Messi beating Ronaldo to equal the record when he scored against Ajax on 5 November, and beating the record on 25 November with three goals against APOEL in a 4–0 victory. Following this milestone goal, Barcelona manager Luis Enrique claimed Messi was the "greatest player of all time". Ronaldo equalled Raúl's tally on 26 November when he scored the only goal of the game against Basel.For the second time in the season, the two players faced each other, this time in the shirts of their respective nations at Old Trafford, and was their last meeting before the announcement of the 2014 FIFA Ballon d'Or. The British press called the match an "international version of the Premier League's 39th game", which claimed that it "offers unique opportunity for a new seam of support to become embroiled in the Ronaldo v Messi arguments". Portugal defeated Argentina 1–0, although neither Ronaldo nor Messi appeared on the score sheet.
On 3 November, in a 4–0 victory over Granada, Ronaldo made league history when he scored his 17th league goal of the season in just 10 games; the record was previously held by Isidro Lángara, who scored 16 goals in the first ten games of the 1935–36 season for Real Oviedo. On 22 November, Messi equalled, and then went past, Telmo Zarra's goalscoring record of 251 when he scored a hat-trick against Sevilla. Luis Enrique praised him following the achievement, saying that he is "one-of-a-kind and we'll never see anyone like him ever again and we are privileged to have him and be able to watch him". On 6 December, Ronaldo overtook Zarra's record of 22 La Liga hat-tricks, which he jointly held with Alfredo Di Stéfano, when he scored three against Celta Vigo. The goals meant he became the quickest player to reach 200 La Liga goals, accomplishing the feat in just 178 games, surpassing Zarra's record of 219 games to reach the milestone. The following day, Messi responded by scoring his third hat-trick in his four games, his 21st La Liga hat-trick in total. The continuous record breaking was said be down to the pairs' "spellbinding skill, relentless application, athletic charisma", while journalist Sid Lowe said that this latest accomplishment "probably doesn't count as a story any more".
On 5 April, Ronaldo scored five times in one game for the first time in his career, including an eight-minute hat-trick, in a 9–1 defeat of Granada in La Liga. He followed this up on 8 April with a goal against Rayo Vallecano in a 2–0 victory; his 300th Real Madrid goal. 10 days later, he became the second player in the history of football to score 50 or more goals in a season on five occasions, when he scored the third goal in a 3–1 victory against Málaga, while earlier in the day, Messi scored his 400th Barcelona goal in a 2–0 win against Valencia.