Messi and Ronaldo Are The Best... of Enemies!

They are the best players in the world but they will never be best friends. When Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi go head-to-head on Tonight, there will be a brief acknowledgement but nothing else.

Really, though, they should go out of their way to thank each other. Every time Ronaldo sparkles for Real Madrid, Messi inevitably tries to go one better for Barcelona. The results have been spectacular and it means Spanish football is now essential viewing.

But watch them in the second leg of the Copa Del Rey semi-final – and again on Saturday in la Liga – and you will see nothing more than a cursory handshake. You don’t need to be a body language expert to appreciate there is no love lost between these two.

The question both men should be asking, however, is this: where would I be without you

You have to question whether their statistics would be so incredible if one was playing in another league. When Ronaldo scored a hat-trick last month against Getafe, Messi scored four the night after against Osasuna. 

All that was missing from his performance was him lifting his shirt to reveal the message 'anything you can do, I can do better.'

Messi has always been a top player and is surrounded by magicians in Xavi and Andres Iniesta but you can argue that Ronaldo’s £80million move from Manchester United in 2009 took his game to another level. Statistics back that up.

f you look at a breakdown of how Messi has reached 300 goals, the first 80 came in 161 games. In the 204 matches he has played since Ronaldo arrived at the Bernabeu, Messi has rattled in 221, as if to hammer home the point he is the best in the world.

Ronaldo, of course, would never acknowledge that nor would he say that trying to outwit Messi has taken his game to another level – he scored 118 goals for Manchester United in 292 appearances but, for Madrid, his tally is 183 goals in 182 matches.

His enmity towards Messi really surfaced last summer at Euro 2012, when Denmark fans barracked him during a game against Portugal, chanting 'Messi!' every time he got possession.

‘You know where he was this time last year,’ Ronaldo asked after the game. ‘Being eliminated from the Copa America. In his own country. That is worse, no?’ 

Further proof arrived via the voting for the Ballon D’Or, which Messi won for a fourth time recently. As captain of Argentina, Messi was given a vote and his top three choices were Iniesta, Xavi and Atletico Madrid’s Radamel Falcao. 

Ronaldo, meanwhile, also got the chance to vote, as he is captain of Portugal. Yet he turned down the chance and handed responsibility to his deputy Bruno Alves. Unsurprisingly, Alves picked Ronaldo as his number one and left Messi off his shortlist.

Source: daily mail