Flying Lionel Messi Has Put Comparisons with Cristiano Ronaldo to Bed
The night after Barcelona vanquished Manchester City 4-0 in the Champions League in mid-October, Luis Suarez received the European Golden Shoe. While collecting it from his children, Benjamin and Delfina, he regaled the audience with an anecdote.
"Benja asked me why I didn't score any goals," said Suarez. "But the fact our neighbour, whom he knows and is friends with, scored three made him happy anyway."
Suarez's neighbour has scored an awful lot of goals, more goals than any other player in a Barcelona shirt—or in an Argentina shirt. He's scored more goals than any other player in Spanish football history.
Suarez's neighbour has 467 goals for Barcelona, to be precise, and 14 of them have come this season. Six of which have come in the last two-and-a-third matches, including the aforementioned hat-trick against Manchester City.
Nobody doubted that Lionel Messi would come out swinging after a month's absence through injury, but it was hard to predict such brutal statistics.
Messi scored within three minutes of returning as a substitute, his treble against City was the 37th of his career, and he netted the opening and closing goals of Barcelona's thrilling 3-2 win over Valencia.
Los Che stopper Diego Alves did his best to try to put Messi off as the Argentinian prepared to take a penalty in the final moments of stoppage time.
Alves told referee Alberto Undiano Mallenco he only wanted to tell Messi one thing, which the referee allowed.
"You know I’ve stopped you before," he said, in reference to a previous spot-kick save, as revealed by TV station Cuatro. "Do you remember that?"
Messi acknowledged with a little nod while Ivan Rakitic tried to clear the other Valencia players away.
Then, in a bid to extend the wait before the penalty, which puts more pressure on the taker, Alves asked for water. "Agua," he cried out. But this time, the referee did not acquiesce to his request.
It was the world's best player against the world's best penalty-saver, and despite Messi's shaky record from the spot, he made no mistake.
Alves went the right way, low down to his right, but Messi's penalty skidded past him into the corner.
If there is anything you can fault Messi for, it’s his bad record from the spot—the No. 10 missed four penalties for Barcelona last season. In every other aspect, he leads the field.
The Ballon d’Or shortlist was released on Monday, and Messi is, of course, on it. But he is not the favourite. Most believe that to be Cristiano Ronaldo, more for his Champions League and European Championship medals with Real Madrid and Portugal respectively than for his performances.
Ronaldo recently spoke about Messi to Coach.
"The media like to make out like we have this big rivalry, but we don’t," explained the Portuguese. "It is not like we are good friends, but there is a mutual respect on both sides."
Ronaldo is right about one thing. The rivalry has died. He has four goals in nine games at club level this season; Messi has 14 in 11.
Focusing on recent goals is not necessarily an accurate measure of the players’ respective abilities. But for two seasons, Ronaldo’s goal tally has been used as the main argument for him in comparisons to Messi. Now he doesn’t even have that.
What’s more, Ronaldo’s performance level has dipped to borderline unacceptable.
It was disguised by the farce over whether he had appealed for offside against team-mate Alvaro Morata’s winning goal in their 2-1 victory over Athletic Bilbao—he hadn’t—but Ronaldo had endured a torrid game that culminated in the forward missing a one-on-one.
Madrid-based newspaper AS has pondered Ronaldo’s failings. Mario de la Riva wrote:
"The stats don’t lie. Nine games in, Cristiano has made his worst start to a season at Real Madrid. He’s having trouble scoring goals (averaging almost 10 attempts per goal); meanwhile the team has learned to get by without him. ...
His chance conversion rate (9.30%) looks even worse if we just look at LaLiga fixtures. In the league he’s scored just twice from 29 attempts, a conversion rate of 6.9%. He’s never had so much trouble. In his worst season on record at Real Madrid—his first, incidentally—he needed less than 6 attempts to score, a conversion rate of 16.8%.
"
They blame injury problems, a lack of pre-season, low confidence and bad aim for why he is struggling. But at 31, which becomes 32 in February, Ronaldo has passed his peak. He is on a natural decline, which will seem more exaggerated because of the high levels he was hitting before.
And he ran a good race. Ronaldo will go down in history as one of the game’s greats. He forced Messi onward and upward. And at times, it’s fair to say, he was the Argentinian’s equal.
But Messi has always had greater natural talent and a significantly wider skill set. That will benefit him in the years ahead because he doesn’t rely on his physical attributes to be the world’s best player.
City boss Pep Guardiola previously said Messi was unstoppable, and ahead of his team's clash with Barcelona, he was reminded of it. "Messi’s not young anymore," the coach remarked to BT Sport, as he said he believed his team could halt the star.
That was before he scored those three goals. None of which relied on anything more than speed of thought, perfect positioning and a lethal finish, all of which he has now and will still retain in five years' time.
Ronaldo will not go down without a fight, and it would be no surprise to see him hitting a goal glut later in the season, fitness providing, but his war with Messi is over.
As Xavi Hernandez put it in September, much to Ronaldo’s chagrin, while speaking on radio show El Larguero (h/t Sport): "Only a fool could have played football and not recognised Cristiano is an elite footballer, but he just has had bad luck to be around at the same time as Leo. The only people who draw comparisons with the two are in Madrid."
And even in Madrid, they are wondering. In both AS and Marca on Wednesday morning, Messi was ahead of Cristiano in polls.
Although the Blancos forward is still expected to pick up his fourth Ballon d’Or in January—and it will surely be his final one—Messi’s incredible form, contrasted with Ronaldo’s continued slump, means voters may yet choose the right option.
And if Messi’s wild, fist-pumping "up yours" celebration against Valencia is anything to go by, then he is "enchufado" (plugged-in) for the coming games. Granada, who face Barcelona on Saturday, be warned.
Los Che coach Cesare Prandelli summed up Messi and his talents nicely before the game.
"I will sleep very well because I know there is no formula to stop Lionel Messi," the coach said in his pre-match press conference. "He is magnificent. Messi is fantasy football. He is what every child dreams about because he is proof that when you have character, determination and talent, you can make history. All the children in the world want to be Messi, and I'm proud to face him."
And the pain Messi inflicted on him with his goals only stood to validate his opinion.
Rik Sharma is Bleacher Report's lead Barcelona correspondent. All information and quotes obtained firsthand unless specified. Follow him on Twitter here: @riksharma_.
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