Hours after Cristiano Ronaldo appeared to take a dig at Lionel Messi’s accomplishments, the Argentine star has responded. Widely regarded as two of the greatest footballers of all time, or rather GOATs, Messi and Ronaldo have shared a long-standing professional rivalry fueled by their massive fan bases.
Ronaldo had recently downplayed Messi’s 2022 World Cup triumph with Argentina, suggesting that winning the tournament was not a major accomplishment. In response, Messi asserted that winning the World Cup is the greatest achievement in football.
At the America Business Forum in Florida, Messi said, “The truth is that explaining the feelings of that moment is difficult. It's hard to put into words what that title meant, on a personal level, on a family level, for my team-mates, and for the country. It was clear how the country celebrated, the need and the desire we had for it to happen again after so much time had passed.”
He added: “For me it was special. First, because for a player, winning the World Cup is the ultimate achievement. It's like anyone in their job, any professional reaching the top. There's nothing more after the World Cup. You can't ask for anything more. And on top of that, I had been lucky enough to have achieved everything before. At the club level, at the individual level. We had also won the Copa América with the national team. That was the missing piece. It was like closing out my entire career with that trophy.”
It’s well known that both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are nearing the end of their illustrious careers, and there is much speculation about whether either will appear in the next World Cup. At present, Messi plays in Major League Soccer for Inter Miami, while Ronaldo represents Al-Nassr in the Saudi Pro League. Ronaldo, who has never lifted the World Cup trophy, was left in tears after Portugal’s quarterfinal exit to Morocco.
Following that defeat, Ronaldo shared an emotional Instagram post, writing that "winning a World Cup for Portugal was the biggest and most ambitious dream of my career."
However, in a recent appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Ronaldo shifted his stance, saying that his legacy doesn’t depend on winning football’s most prestigious title.
In a teaser for the second part of the interview ahead of its Thursday release, Ronaldo remarked: “If you ask me, Cristiano, is it a dream to win the World Cup? No, it's not a dream. To define if I'm one of the best of the history, to win one competition, [of] six games, seven games. You think it's fair?”
Messi, on the other hand, holds a completely different opinion, calling becoming a world champion “the ultimate achievement” and saying it felt like he was “closing out my entire career” after enduring so many past disappointments on the grand stage.
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