Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher have disagreed in the age-old debate between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Gary Neville explained why he believes Cristiano Ronaldo is worthy of the GOAT title, despite the fact that his counterpart was on the opposite side of the debate.
According to Manchester Evening News football news former Manchester United defender, Neville was waxing lyrical about Ronaldo’s stunning second debut for the club on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football.
Neville chose United’s newest debutant when asked whom he would choose from Ronaldo or Messi to come off the bench to win a game. “It would absolutely be Cristiano Ronaldo,” Neville said. “He can score with his left foot, his wrong foot, he can score with his right foot, he can score from distance, he’s probably the best poacher now in football, he can score from penalties.”
“And if you stick it in the box and hang it up there he will score. He might even score with a free-kick. If you think about impact and who is the greatest player of all time, I’ve never really answered that question. That is a phenomenal amount of goals with his left foot [123] it’s an outrageous amount of headers [110]. Penalties, again a massive amount of penalties [125], hat-tricks, free-kicks.”
“He would be the player in the history of football, that I’ve watched that I would bring off the bench if I had someone win the game for me. I do think he is the greatest football that’s ever lived. [Carragher] is shaking his head but that’s not a bias … I would want to trust [Ronaldo] to win me a football match most, who is the most complete player.”
On the other hand, Jamie Carragher believes Messi, who made a football transfer to PSG, is the greatest footballer of all time. He said: “Ronaldo is not the greatest player of all time. His pal here Lionel Messi is. Messi has a better goal record than Ronaldo. Messi is a playmaker. Messi can run a game. Ronaldo can’t do that – again not a criticism. But no way in the world he’s the greatest player of all time.”
“You talk about whom do you want coming off the bench, Messi scored double coming off the bench than Ronaldo so that’s ridiculous what you’ve just said. He can score different types of goals, it doesn’t matter. Even if Messi just scores with his left foot, it’s who’s got more chance of scoring from the bench and the stats prove Messi scores more coming off the bench than Ronaldo.”
“Two absolutely wonderful players … But Messi as a player can take you to a place where you can’t believe. What Ronaldo does is do things other players can do, you see him score a great header – you’ve seen it before – heading, running, Messi can do things we’ve never seen before.”
Neville concluded with: “There are a lot of people who believe Ronaldo is, there are a lot of people who believe Messi is. I would never say someone who chose Messi is wrong, that’s their opinion.”
