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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
@ demonyo - so by "lately" i didn't mean yesterday and last week or the last few months but recent years in general
i don't look at the stats of la liga, but maybe it's the way real plays that makes cronaldo stand out more as the difference maker at least in games i watch-- namely champions league + international matches.
yes, marcelo was the amazing one this week yet cronaldo scored the goals. and it's always him for some reason that comes out of nowhere with a piece of genius and completely changes the complexion of a game right where it makes a difference. he just handles those crucial moments so fucking well. nobody else does it like him.
it's not just the ballons d'or he's taken from lionel but also there are the champions league cups and the euros and all these amazing victories while messi wilted at 2 copa américas and world cups and had a fit and quit playing for his team.
yes it's a team thing but also (again maybe due to the system of play) i haven't seen messi single-handedly change the direction of an important game lately the way cronaldo does. he does it of course. but his teams don't make it as high as his archrival's. who are probably going for la duodécima this years unless someone (something) stops them.
tldr; iv'e seen it's possible to shut down messi, but cronaldo... good luck trying.
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There's a lot to agree with there, not least that Ronaldo has had the edge lately, I just took objection to the blown out the water bit. I wasn't snapping at you it's just this Messi v Ronaldo thing is out of hand now. Neither are at their peak anymore so it seems a bit pointless making overall claims about them based on it (not that that's what you were doing).
Bottom line for me, at their respective peaks Messi was the best player I've ever seen and nothing that I've seen from Ronaldo at any time in his career makes me question that. Ronaldo is bigger, stronger so it makes sense his career will last longer but for about 5 years Messi was playing at an almost supernatural level, doing things I've never seen anyone do. As brilliant as Ronaldo has been, I've never seen him do anything that made me think only he could do that. In that sense I put Ronaldo in the category of players like Zlatan, R9, Raul, etc and probably better than any of them. I put Messi in a different category, with players like Maradona, Zidane, Cruyff, etc, whose greatness, while backed up by stats, seems less reducible to them.