Is Ronaldo vs Messi the all time greatest rivalry of this sport?

Maradonna and Pele have no on-pitch rivalry... they played in different eras. It's more of "who's a bigger legend" rivalry.  Maradonna and Platini had a huge on-pitch one however.

Beckenbauer and Cruyff had a big one too.

And then you had all the dutch NT players and managers who hated each other  In-squad rivalries = Dutch are dominant

perhaps yes but lets be honest


lauda/hunt senna/prost shits all over this

la bestia negra wrote:perhaps yes but lets be honest


lauda/hunt  senna/prost shits all over this

Magic Johnson/Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas/Michael Jordan, Shaq/Kobe, etc

Dan or Dave....easily

I think a lot of people here are too close to the subject and don't want to look at it from an unbiased perspective.

In terms of media, significance, exposure, and of course sheer talent this rivalry will definitely be remembered for decades to come.

As mentioned before, to the mass public their names are synonymous with one another. Messi vs Ronaldo yields 55 million results on Google.

Is it the biggest football rivalry of all time? Perhaps it will be. Regardless, it will be remembered and many will argue it was the greatest ever. It's also far from finished.

Nope, the rivaliry exists in media only. From definition of rival, people has to be more or less on equal terms in terms of ability and output to be concerned rivals. Messi is clearly a class above Ronaldo, therefore there's no real rivaliry.
I considered Gabriel Batistuta as a great rival for R9 back in time. Batistuta wasn't as famous as R9 but he was one hell of a player on equal terms to R9.
Federer vs. Nadal and Sampras vs. Agassi rivaliries were truly of epic proportions

Gil wrote:Jesus Christ stop being hipsters for once you bellends. It's clearly the greatest rivalry whether you like it or not. Their names are almost synonymous with one another now.

Pele and Maradona never even played against each other.

Only other notable rivalry I can think of is Keane and Viera.

+1

@babs, Messi might be the better player, but they put up equal numbers and it will always at least be the greatest goal scoring rivalry.

Babun wrote:Nope, the rivaliry exists in media only. From definition of rival, people has to be more or less on equal terms in terms of ability and output to be concerned rivals. Messi is clearly a class above Ronaldo, therefore there's no real rivaliry.
I considered Gabriel Batistuta as a great rival for R9 back in time. Batistuta wasn't as famous as R9 but he was one hell of a player on equal terms to R9.
Federer vs. Nadal and Sampras vs. Agassi rivaliries were truly of epic proportions

I think R9 was ahead of Batistuta in technical ability, he was more proficient goalscorer and also played a big part for Brazil.
Raul v Batistuta would have been better comparison imo.

rwo power wrote:As a matter of fact, in my eyes, the rivalry between Messi and CR7 is more a rivalry between their fans, while Pele and Maradona attack each other all the time and thus obviously have a personal rivalry.

I agree with this, it is more of a fan rivalry than it is between Messi and Ronaldo.

They're both amazing players though, the fact that we are watching 2 players in the same era score 50+ goals per season and breaking records left and right is remarkable.

I would love to see those 2 battling out each other in the Prem League. That would be legendary.

hrealmadrid wrote:I think a lot of people here are too close to the subject and don't want to look at it from an unbiased perspective.

In terms of media, significance, exposure, and of course sheer talent this rivalry will definitely be remembered for decades to come.

As mentioned before, to the mass public their names are synonymous with one another. Messi vs Ronaldo yields 55 million results on Google.

Is it the biggest football rivalry of all time? Perhaps it will be. Regardless, it will be remembered and many will argue it was the greatest ever. It's also far from finished.

Yeah, it's a massive money maker and has a huge marketing, and? But I agree with your first sentence, everyone that agreed with gil has been a Madrid fan.

Yes, I think it's the greatest rivalry in football, but we should keep in mind that it's also happening at a time when everything relating to following and discussing football is at a higher stage than ever before. There's never been this level of communication between fans (thanks to the Internet), this level of media coverage (thanks to the Internet and lucrative TV deals) or this level of overall global knowledge. Our time is better than any previous period for making, marketing and displaying superstars.

In 1984 platini won the euros with the best individual performance in its history, in 1986 maradona won the world cup with the best individual performance in its history. In the meantime they both did great things with their clubs in serie a, fighting for the unofficial crown of best player in the world.

To me that was a great rivalry between two players that are widely regarded as top 10 in history

I dont like dwelling on the past. I bet Platini in prime would struggle to start for Spurs in this day of age.

You might not like to dwell on the past but did you notice what the title of the thread is? It's says "all time", which is a pretty redundant concept if you don't think of the past

How many people here actually has seen Platini and Maradona playing live? And no I dont mean those 2-3 minute comp. quality poor videos around youtube with broken audio. The way they are being labeled as a rivalries are done by veterans, pundits and the media.

So Ronaldo vs Messi is the greatest rivalry of all time because you're too young to have ever witnessed another one?   

You said that not me.

zigra wrote:So Ronaldo vs Messi is the greatest rivalry of all time because you're too young to have ever witnessed another one?   

More like Messi and Ronaldo would have been out injured 6 months every year if they played in that period of time Messi is too frail and Ronnie false physical. Drogba would've still owned anyways.
Speaking of Drogs, he was one of the best players of the last decade. Guy's reputation was tarnished by his acting on the field and the super crap support he got from midfield in his Chelsea era. Chelsea didn't have any creative mids, no wingers either. He had to create for himself and others every game. He was absolutely a big match player as well.

the deepest, most bitter rivalry in all of football that l can think of is Rangers vs. Celtic. lve never seen any two groups of people hate each other more than them. lts like they believe their sole reason to exist is to hate each other.

VendettaRed07 wrote:the deepest, most bitter rivalry in all of football that l can think of is Rangers vs. Celtic. lve never seen any two groups of people hate each other more than them. lts like they believe their sole reason to exist is to hate each other.

Milwall and West Ham have one of those rivalries too

It's an incredibly close individual battle for supremecy, but you can't really label it the greatest rivalry when neither guy openly shows dislike for the other. I'm sure someone in Hollywood could come up with a good script by exaggerating their rivalry and focusing on key moments, but leave that for many years from now when most people don't really remember exactly how things unfolded

El Gunner wrote:LoL reading the first page of this thread and wondering to myself how the feck can Pele vs Maradona be a rivalry when they haven't played against each other.

Because they still try to battle it out who is the best of all time and they love to attack each other via the media? If that is no rivalry, I don't know what constitutes a rivalry...

Babun wrote:

zigra wrote:So Ronaldo vs Messi is the greatest rivalry of all time because you're too young to have ever witnessed another one?   

More like Messi and Ronaldo would have been out injured  6 months every year if they played in that period of time :lol:Messi is too frail and Ronnie false physical. Drogba would've still owned anyways.
Speaking of Drogs, he was one of the best players of the last decade. Guy's reputation was tarnished by his acting on the field and the super crap support he got from midfield in his Chelsea era. Chelsea didn't have any creative mids, no wingers either. He had to create for himself and others every game. He was absolutely a big match player as well.

You mean that super crap midfield consisting of Ballack-Essien and Lampard with Robben and Joe Cole on the wings? That Chelsea?

Don't rewrite the past, yes Chelsea's team that won the CL were decidely average by comparison but for most of Drogba's Chelsea career the team was stacked.

Also LOL @ Ronaldo and Messi wouldn't have owned.... anyway if anything Drogba was overrated.

He scored 20+ twice in his 8 year Chelsea career..... scoring 51 goals in 158 games in the other 6 seasons.

One of the best players in the last decade my arse.

I wouldn't describe Ballack, Lampard, Cole & Essien as creative midfielders. Besides he spent most of his career in a defensive setup playing as the lone man upfront.

The one season we played progressive attacking football he had the best goals to games ratio in PL history despite not taking pens.

Besides, Drogba wasn't a scrub killer like Henry or Suarez. He was the very definition of a big game player as evidenced by his finals/semi finals records and his record against the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs etc as well as in the CL (8th all time on the charts).