Maybe it has something to do with CR7 being a former player and so called legend of MU I guess, a club that have the most fans and ve been overly PRed across the globe! In my experience, MU fans especially those in China and Southeast Asia seem to think that the more they blindly worship CR7 (or blindly favor him over Messi), the more MU it makes them! This along with social media will, I believe, somehow make CR7 legacy look much greater than it actually is in the future! he ll be remembered as one of the all time great for sure, maybe top 5 or 10, but not to the extend that some here may think. Modern footballers' careers have been being well documented especially under the form of video. Not many in the future will have enough patience to watch the whole 40 mins career video of CR7 loaded with tapins and Penalty kicks with long range shots and headers here and there as well as the boring analyse of his poaching gameplay as such, while they ll likely be dropping their jaws for hours watching Messi's career video! So for a true football fan regardless of now or future who d likely do some research, there is and will be no debate at all!
i've even seen them do this when United are playing same time as Madrid 
