Argentina star Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been ruling the world of football for close to two decades. Football fans around the world claim that they are the best players to have ever played the game of football.
Fans of both the legends have continuously indulged in arguments regarding who is the better of the two from the early days of their rivalry. These arguments have been the reason behind many a break of friendship and different kinds of brawls in recent times.
Now, Twitter Sport took it to another level by making a controversial tweet in reply to a post by Goal.com. The football-based news organisation posted a tweet which read that both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo can be called GOAT.
But in response to that, Twitter Sport replied by posting a GIF of the Barcelona legend saying no. This aroused a lot of criticism on the social media platform as netizens got furious with the response of the platform.
The Messi fans were happy and supported the social media handle while Ronaldo fans were livid and stated that it was irresponsible on behalf of Twitter to take sides. The neutral ones also had the same opinion that Twitter should have been unbiased.
Why did Twitter Sport choose Messi over Ronaldo?
If we take the all-time record of both the players then we will see that Messi is ahead of the Portuguese star. According to stats accumulated from The Week UK, the Argentine star has scored 671 goals from the 823 matches he has played at a goal ratio of 0.82 whereas Ronaldo has scored 689 goals from the 963 matches he has played with a goal ratio of 0.72.
Moreover, Messi is also way ahead of his fellow compatriot in the number of assist count. The 32-year-old footballer has 272 assists to his name whereas Ronaldo has 218 assists in his whole career till now.
If we look at the last season, then also Messi is ahead as the Barcelona star scored 51 goals from the 50 matches he played whereas the Juventus star striker added 28 goals to his name from the 43 matches he took part in.
But we need to keep in mind that Ronaldo used to play as a winger in Manchester United while Messi has been playing as a striker from the start. Though, of late, he has been playing in the goal creator's role.
Ronaldo has played for four different clubs and different leagues and has proved his mettle for those teams while Messi has never ventured outside Barcelona. The 34-year-old footballer has been much more successful for the national team and is the best in the Champions League whereas Messi has not got that much success in international football.
Both the players are GOATs but one may state that Messi is a better player on the field looking at the stats whereas Ronaldo is a much better leader than Messi. The choice of Twitter Sport is probably biased because we do not need to choose who is the better one but just enjoy their magical display.
