How much ever we try to move away from the Messi vs Ronaldo debate, the sheer talent that the two men possess mean that football can never ignore two of the greatest talents to have graced the world.
After Cristiano Ronaldo’s heroics against the mighty Spain, the world’s attention turned to the little magician to see what he could conjure up to further add fuel to the fire.
The way he started the game, with real purpose, got everyone thinking that the Messi show was imminent. And then came the decision to award Argentina a penalty. Up stepped Lionel Messi, and the parallels started writing themselves up. A hat-trick for Messi after the hat-trick from Ronaldo? Will Messi see Ronaldo’s goals and raise him a couple more?
What followed has happened only twice before for him in an Argentina shirt. Messi decided to go neither one way or the other and lifted the ball at the perfect height for the keeper to make the save. The script was thrown out of the window. Lionel Messi had missed a penalty. And to be honest, never got his mind off that incident. Did the pressure get to even Lionel Messi?
Of course, he’s going to make us all pay for our words in this very particular competition, but for the moment, in the 2018 World Cup, it’s Cristiano Ronaldo 3, Lionel Messi 0.