There was a time when these two were fairly equal. Not to the serious football enjoyer, of course, but the casual fan considered Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo the interchangeable top two of football, like Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna. They traded Ballon d’Ors every other year and one or the other always finished top of the scoring charts. Being at FC Barcelona and Real Madrid dialed their respective fans’ rivalry up to a fever pitch.
Then, circa 2021, things began to change. Messi won the Copa
América that year, ending his title drought with Argentina, while also drawing level with Ronaldo’s own Euros win. Even after that, there was a case to be made for Ronaldo. He had more Champions League titles, and more goals scored overall.
Then came World Cup 2022. The one where Messi won it all. It took an absolute dogfight against France in the final, but the Argentinians lifted the trophy after being so narrowly denied a decade prior. Messi got his World Cup. He got another Ballon d’Or later that year. No one but the staunchest Ronaldo fanboys were asking questions any more. Messi was the king, the undisputed best player of his generation.
After that, the careers of these two legends began to wind down. Messi went to MLS, Ronaldo went to the Saudi Pro League. So World Cup 2026 was meant to be an epilogue, a final international competition to cap off a pair of generational careers. Except it’s more complicated than that.
Who shot the albatross?
In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the eponymous mariner shoots an albatross, bringing misfortune down upon his ship and its crew. His fellow crewmembers force him to wear the corpse of the albatross around his neck as punishment and a reminder of his guilt. He is only freed near the end of the poem when the guilt leaves him and the albatross finally falls from his neck.
Ronaldo, in this slightly tortured analogy, is the albatross. The mariner, on the other hand, has a more cryptic identity. You might assume it to be Portugal, but no. Portugal would be the crew, the ones who benefitted from the albatross being shot, before it all went to hell. So who shot the albatross?
Cristiano Ronaldo has been a controversial figure at the 2026 World Cup so far. When Portugal succumbed to a tepid draw in their opening game, he came under fire for his lack of impact. CR7 seemed a ghost of his former self, demonstrating a shocking lack of movement. His pace was gone and his shooting inaccurate, in those rare situations he could even manage a shot. He was, perhaps, the worst player on the pitch.
The second game against Uzbekistan was a lifeline for the 41-year-old. Two goals in the first half and opportunities for more. Then, however, you get stats like these:
At his age, Ronaldo is not a world class player any more. He is not a game changer. He can hide in the Saudi Pro League and pretend he still has what it takes to play football at this level. Yet there is no hiding at the World Cup. He can pad his stats against a team outside the top 50, but the football has left his legs. Everyone can see it, except, well…
Going back to our original question, who shot the albatross?
The mariner, the one responsible, should be the legion of fans that CR7 has cultivated, fans of the man more than the sport, who followed him from Manchester United to Real Madrid to Juventus to the Saudi Pro League. They’re the ones who Ronaldo plays for, the ones who put him on a pedestal alongside the best ever.
In all fairness, CR7 did a lot of it himself. His achievements are real and no one can take them away from him. This World Cup, however, exposes not what he is, but what he isn’t. He can’t make something out of nothing. He doesn’t have a touch that borders on magic. He can’t be one of the best players on the pitch while barely even bothering to run. He doesn’t embody the fantasy of a footballing genius. He’s amazing, but he isn’t that guy.
Everyone sees it except for his fans. Go on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. The CR7 fans are out in force, defending him and all he stands for. Comments sections rendered a cesspool. Critics silenced with a bludgeon. They are the ones suffering the most from this downfall, watching the decline of their GOAT in real time. They cannot accept the end, just like Ronaldo himself cannot.
So, just like the mariner suffered, they are the ones who will have to watch the downfall happen, and tell people the tale.
The emperor needs no clothes
When Messi won the World Cup back in 2022, that was it. The journey was complete, he had conquered football, he had nothing left to prove. He joined Diego Maradona and Pelé as head of the pantheon of football.
So why, exactly, did he come back?
It is hard to say what expectations people had for Messi coming into this tournament. He was in semi-retirement, playing in MLS, a level several notches below the top European leagues. People were talking about Harry Kane, Erling Haaland, Michael Olise, Kylian Mbappé, and others. They did not have Messi’s name on their lips.
Maybe they should have.
Lionel Messi shows, in World Cup 2026, that the football refuses to leave him. Deprived of his youth, his pace, his stamina. Deprived of Pep Guardiola and Xavi and Iniesta and Neymar and Di María. It doesn’t matter what you take away. The sheer footballing talent, the skill inherent to his game, is something that refuses to fade.
A hat trick against Algeria. A brace against Austria, including a missed penalty. Miroslav Klose’s World Cup scoring record broken. And a show of force. A statement of Argentina’s intentions as genuine contenders. Messi is the one who did it all. And he keeps doing it, over and over, no matter what you take away from him.
The World Cup is not over, but football is remembering that Leo Messi is still here. Ballon d’Or conversations have restarted. If Argentina do win the World Cup a second time, it will be solely because of him. At that point, how could you argue that he doesn’t deserve it?
Messi shows that you can’t take away fundamentals. When he leaves football, it won’t be because the game left him. The way he plays, you could make a legitimate argument that he could be back here four years from now. He is that good.
Time remains undefeated, but Leo Messi is giving it a hell of a fight. He will lose, but the way you lose matters. If this is Messi’s last World Cup, he promises to make it one of his best ever.
The great vs the best
For most of their careers, Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were neck and neck. Except it wasn’t that close. Messi was always far ahead in assists, in creative numbers, in most metrics outside of goals. Many fans saw it, called it out. But there were just as many who refused to see it, who gave into biases or simply saw the game in a different way. Messi was always better than Ronaldo.
It just took football a little bit of time to catch up.
It didn’t have to go this way. If CR7 retired four years ago, after his last World Cup, he could have been remembered as the man just shy of the greatest ever. He just had to go one further, in search of more goals, more records, and possibly one last trophy, and ruined it all. This will be Ronaldo’s last World Cup. His last impression on a majority of football fans will be a sense of bewilderment, people questioning whether he should even be here.
Messi, meanwhile, continues to scale new heights. In an era of different stars, he remains, well, himself. There is no bigger statement than that. Ronaldo needs to score goals to justify himself. Messi only needs to be himself.
This may be a little too harsh, a little too one-sided for some folks. Maybe it is. Football is never so clear cut, the consensus is muddy at best. What people think on Reddit will be different from what they say on Twitter which will again differ from Instagram of TikTok. However, this World Cup has seen the consensus shift against Ronaldo in a way previous competitions never have. It might have been better for him if he had never played.
Well, let’s be fair, there are still games to go. Messi is way far ahead right now. Maybe, by some miracle, Ronaldo could get back in the race. If he does, then it might be worth more than every Ballon d’Or, every Champions League title he has ever won. Because he has to catch up with the best ever. No one else has this weight on their shoulders, Ronaldo was just the only guy to get close.
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