bismp
Well-known member
I agree with you, Leo was the better and most complete player every single season, even when Leo had some "down" seasons for his standards.Have to disagree here. Messi was better than CR every year for me. Bar goal scoring, Messi does in one game what it takes Ronaldo 7 or 8 games to do.
And even with goal scoring, Messi's goals are of a far higher quality and he has a far better chance conversion ratio.
I feel you have been influenced by Ballon Dor here. In the old days it used to be about which player was the best individually throughout the season. But when Messi came along this gave France Football a problem because they realised that Messi would basically win it every year and as a result nobody would be interested in it.
Therefore, to milk their cash cow, they started to place more emphasis on team accomplishments so as to sway it towards other players who were not individually as good as Messi during that season, but won trophies like the UCL or league etc. This lead to some farcical situations where people were clamouring for players like Jorginho to win the Ballon Dor.
To be fair it was a brilliant strategy to drum up interest, unfortunately it lead to the mistaken belief that there were seasons where Ron was individually better than Messi. There wasn't. Messi is so superior as a footballer to Ronaldo that he would literally have to play a shit season for Ronaldo to have a chance to be better than him. And he didn't play a shit season.
That said, BDor always favored team titles etc over sheer game to game brilliance, see Cannavaro over R10 in 2006, Nedved over Henry in 2003 and R9 in 2002 etc.
Messi was always the best between 2009 and 2019 and should have had 9 or 10 Ballon D'Ors instead of 6 in this time period, based on footballing ability alone.
But you also have to factor team success, it is a team game after all. Ofc people go to the extreme and say BS like Jorginho in 2021. But let's not pretend that Leo was not on the receiving end of 'titles-based' favoritism in 2023 and mainly 2021. Titles are important and when one player is clearly the best on that team, he deserves to be applauded.
But, while Leo was indeed the best player in the world by a mile, based on game-to-game performance, almost every year in his prime, you also have to factor in clutch performances. Leo managed to improve his image with the glorious WC and also the Copa, but truth be told, he was more often than not disappearing in the big stage in the latter half of his career.
Of course, one player or one team cannot win all the time, cannot perform at the absolute best all the time. But when you underperform for your standards (sometimes massively) and the #2 guy over-performs, then questions are rightfully raised:
2013/14:
Leo was injured at the beginning of the season. When he came back, he wasn't himself, everyone was talking about the "saving himself for the WC" BS. In the big games, he played well against MC and RM(La Liga), but was a non-factor in all games against Atletico and in the CdR final. On the other hand, CR scored like 17 CL goals, including a double to finish Bayern off. And this season could be considered one of the last during which CR was all-around one of the best players in the world. The contrast is rather obvious.
2015/16:
Similar story, Messi did have a great season (although kinda meh for his standards) and had many crucial moments in La Liga to ensure a tight title win, but mostly underperformed in the big stage: in the three biggest games of the season, he disappeared (2x Atletico, 1x Real Madrid, which almost cost us the title). It is not easy to say that the best player in the world disappeared in the biggest moments.
2016/17:
This is the most obvious example. When judging game to game performances, I personally think that Leo was as good as 2018/19 or even 2014/15 during this season. I really do. On the other hand, CR's overall game really started to decline around that time. However, in the big games, Leo was completely neutralized (with the exception of the Classico in the Bernabeu). On the other hand CR had probably the most clutch CL KO campaign of all time.
