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- Herausgeber: Icon Books
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MBAPPÉ AND MESSI, NEYMAR, RONALDO For years, a personal battle has defined top-level European football – Messi vs Ronaldo. A rivalry like no other. Since they were first pitted against each other in 2007, the two men's domination of the record books has been unparalleled. They continue to divide opinion but one thing is beyond doubt: this is football's greatest ever head-to-head. Luca Caioli draws on the exclusive testimonies of managers, teammates, friends and family to tell the inside story of this momentous rivalry. Includes all the action from the 2017/18 season and the 2018 World Cup
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Contents
Chapter 1
Messi and Cristiano, Cristiano and Messi
Team Messi or Team Cristiano? Choosing a side seems more or less obligatory these days. The footballing world is divided – although it’s not an easy choice. It’s about more than just the stats and the trophies, it’s about deep-seated loyalties and the emotions these two players stir up. It’s a debate swirling with emotion and passion as much as statistics and reason. Every tiny detail is analysed and compared: gestures, on-the-pitch behaviour, dribbling technique, fouls, assists, goals, matches, championships, prizes, their most recent statements, the latest research.
CR7 versus Messi has earned its place as a classic derby. Sport is fuelled by rivalries between athletes, teams and countries, as well as by comparisons between different periods in each of their histories. Memory is a fundamental element of the game and pitting one person against another is a favourite pastime which has always divided world media opinion. Boxers Ali and Foreman, racing drivers Prost and Senna, tennis stars Borg and McEnroe, basketball players Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, motorcycle racers Valentino Rossi and Marc Márquez, athletes Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson … But in football it is rare to find a player considered to be a ‘great’ who can also be overshadowed by a contemporary. Pelé, Cruyff, Maradona and Di Stéfano never overlapped in terms of their time at the top. But there is a personal duel between the two stars which intensified during the years when they both played in La Liga.
Which brings us to the most frequently asked question: who is the best? It’s a question asked over and over in the newspapers, on the radio, on TV and on blogs, and everyone from coaches, footballers and pundits to plain old fans have been swept up in the debate. Everyone has their own opinion. During his tenure as England coach, Fabio Capello once said: ‘It’s difficult to decide which one is better. They are both very good but in different ways. Messi is unpredictable, no one is capable of doing what he does. But Cristiano is very powerful and has incredible speed.’ But when asked who he would choose for his squad, Capello joked: ‘Cristiano speaks English. But Messi speaks football.’
Former Argentina coach Sergio ‘El Checho’ Batista agrees with the Economist: ‘For me, Messi is the best, but both of them are up there on the list of greats. Leo has amazing skills, he’s incredibly talented, and he has a left-footed shot that many players envy. Cristiano hits the ball very well, he is strong and he moves very fast.’ Pep Guardiola is even more emphatic, insisting that Leo is the best player in history. ‘There has never been a player like him, and I don’t think there will ever be another like him,’ the Manchester City manager has said.
There are some who refuse to be drawn on the matter. ‘They are both top players,’ says former Portugal manager Paulo Bento. ‘If they didn’t play in the same country there wouldn’t be a debate about who was better.’ And then there are others who are die-hard Cristiano fans no matter what. ‘He is a more complete player than Messi, in the sense that he plays equally well with both feet, and his head,’ points out CD Castellón and former Valencia player Ángel Dealbert. ‘He can push forward and he can shoot. Messi loses points when it comes to headers and playing with the right foot.’ Carlo Ancelotti also needs no convincing: ‘Cristiano is from another world. He scores with incredible ease. It’s difficult to find the words to describe him.’ As if that’s not enough, the Bayern Munich manager adds: ‘No disrespect to anyone else, but Cristiano is the best footballer I have ever coached.’ Even Usain Bolt is a big fan of the Portuguese. ‘Ronaldo is better than Messi, without a doubt. He’s a more well-rounded player,’ says the champion athlete, adding: ‘Plus he’s fun and he’s a great person.’ And of course, we have to hear from Sir Alex Ferguson. ‘People say, “Who’s the best player in the world?” and plenty of people rightly say Lionel Messi – you can’t dispute that opinion. But Ronaldo could play for Millwall, Queens Park Rangers and Doncaster and score a hat-trick. I’m not sure Messi could do it. Ronaldo’s got two feet, quick, brave in the air. I think Messi’s a Barcelona player.’
Ever since the two stars went head to head they have always been portrayed as opponents, and the press and fans have drawn attention to the rivalry ever since CR7 moved to Real Madrid. They are viewed as great enemies as much as great stars. Each the kryptonite to the other’s Superman. Ronaldo’s fans and detractors always seem to fixate on Messi – and vice versa. Whenever fans from any team across the world want to attempt to rile one of them, they shout the other’s name. And in interviews, each is constantly asked his opinion of the other.
Nevertheless, in public at least, the two have always shown the utmost respect for each other. ‘We’re colleagues. We’re friends professionally, although obviously we don’t spend time together outside the realm of football. The same goes for my relationship with other players,’ Ronaldo has explained. ‘He works hard to play the best that he can for his club and country, just as I do. There’s a certain rivalry in that we each want the best for our teams. I hope that in a few years’ time we’ll look back and laugh about it together. Football is a game, it’s entertainment, something that makes us happy. It’s a beautiful thing, something everyone in the world enjoys. We have to approach the rivalry with a positive attitude, because it’s a good thing.’ The presence of someone like Messi has pushed CR7 to ever greater heights. And the Argentine has a similar opinion: ‘There is no real rivalry, there never has been. It’s something the press like to hype up. We both just want to do the best that we can for our clubs. It’s not Messi versus Ronaldo, it never has been.’
In truth, there was a slight tension in the early days whenever they crossed paths during a match or public appearance. But in recent seasons they have been very relaxed about it, even exchanging private remarks or gestures, as they did at the Ballon d’Or ceremony in January 2015, or at the FIFA ‘The Best’ awards in October 2017. The maturity that has developed on the pitch over the years has been reflected in the real world. But make no mistake, they each want the same thing: to triumph over the other. They are hungry for victory, passionate, indefatigable. They have the drive to constantly improve and the will to succeed.
They are always convinced that victory is just within their reach and they just need the confidence and determination to make it happen. Neither one ever gives up, they know that success requires discipline and sacrifice. What they have in common is their ability to put their feelings aside and give 200 per cent to the task in hand. They have the talent and the skills, they are natural goalscorers, the real deal. But they are also two professionals obsessed with their profession, seeking perfection.
Who is the best? This book doesn’t try to answer that. But it will tell you everything you need to know about these two footballing superstars to make up your own mind.
Chapter 2
The Rosarino versus the Madeiran
Cristiano and Leo are two of the highest-paid sportsmen in the world, but they were not always accustomed to such a life of luxury. They are both from modest, working-class families, for whom making ends meet was often a challenge.
The Real Madrid star is born on 5 February 1985 at 10.20am at the Cruz de Carvalho Hospital in Funchal, the capital of Madeira, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, some 860 kilometres from Lisbon. He weighs 4 kilos. He is the fourth child of María Dolores dos Santos and José Dinis Aveiro, joining Hugo, Elma and Katia. The family’s three-bedroom concrete council house in Quinta do Falcão would later be demolished in 2007 to avoid problems with squatters.
They had not planned to have another child. Katia is already nine years old, and this latest pregnancy took them by surprise. Nonetheless CR7 quickly becomes the spoiled baby of the family. The first thing they need to do is come up with a name. ‘My sister, who was working in an orphanage at the time, said that if it was a boy we could name him Cristiano,’ recalls Dolores. ‘I thought it was a good choice. And my husband and I both liked the name Ronaldo, after Ronald Reagan. My sister chose Cristiano and we chose Ronaldo.’
Just over two years later, thousands of miles away, Celia Cuccittini is admitted to the maternity ward of the Garibaldi Hospital in the Argentine town of Rosario, the largest town in Santa Fe province. Seven-year-old Rodrigo and five-year-old Matías are waiting at home with their grandmother, while their father Jorge Messi accompanies their mother to the hospital. The pregnancy has been uneventful, but during the final few hours complications arise. Gynaecologist Norberto Odetto diagnoses severe foetal distress and decides to induce labour in order to avoid any lasting effects on the baby. To this day, Jorge can recall the fear of those moments, the panic he felt when the doctor told him that he was going to use forceps, his plea that he do everything possible to avoid using those pincers, which, as is the case with many parents, concerned him greatly due to the horror stories he had heard regarding deformity and damage to one’s baby. In the end the forceps are not needed, and Lionel Andrés Messi is born a few minutes after 6.00am on 24 June 1987. Now that the initial fears have passed, they can celebrate. The new arrival is a healthy 3 kilos.
Leo grows up in the home that Jorge has built at weekends with the help of his father Eusebio. It’s a brick house on a 300 square-metre plot, with a backyard where the children can play, and it’s in the Las Heras neighbourhood in southern Rosario, home to humble, hardworking people. Jorge is the head of department at a steelmaking company, while Celia works at a magnet manufacturing workshop.
Over in Madeira, Cristiano’s father Dinis is the town hall gardener, while Dolores works hard as a cook so that she can put food on the table for her own children as well. Like thousands of Portuguese citizens, Dolores had emigrated to France at the age of twenty, where she spent three months cleaning houses. Her husband was going to join her, but when he wasn’t able to she returned to Madeira. They already had two children. Life isn’t easy for the Aveiro family. It’s tough for anyone who lives far away from the luxury hotel industry which has colonised the coast. It’s a small home for a family of six – and whenever there’s a storm the house leaks in dozens of places. Dolores fetches bricks and mortar from the town hall to try to keep the problem under control. But today, Cristiano remembers that time as a happy childhood. At two or three years old, playing in the yard or on Lombinho Street, he began to discover his best friend – the football.
‘One Christmas I gave him a remote-control car, thinking that would keep him busy,’ recalls his godfather Fernão Sousa, ‘but he preferred to play with a football. He slept with his ball, it never left his side. It was always under his arm – wherever he went, it went with him.’
Ronaldo’s love of football has been handed down through the family. In his spare time, Dinis was a kit man for local team Andorinha. And it’s no surprise when he chooses the team’s captain to be little Cristiano’s godfather. In fact, Dinis and Fernão Sousa are more than half an hour late to the baptism because they don’t want to miss Andorinha’s match against Ribeira Brava.
‘From the day he walked through the door, football was Cristiano’s favourite sport,’ recalls María dos Santos, one of his former teachers. ‘He took part in other activities, learnt songs and did his work, but he liked to have time for himself, time for football. If there wasn’t a real ball around – and often there wasn’t – he would make one out of socks. He would always find a way of playing football in the playground. I don’t know how he managed it.’
Cristiano has to play in the street because there is no pitch near his house. One particular street, Quinta do Falcão, proves to be a challenge when buses, cars and motorbikes want to get through. He and his friends have to remove the stones marking out the goalposts each time and wait for the traffic to pass before resuming the game. Their games are intense battles between households, between gangs of friends. They are games that never end. There’s a well where Cristiano spends hours on end kicking the ball against the wall alone. The well and the street are his first training grounds. It’s here, between the pavement, the asphalt and the cars, playing against kids young and old, that Ronaldo learns the tricks and techniques which will make him great and become the hallmarks of his signature style. ‘He used to spend all day in the street, doing authentic tricks with the ball. It was as if it was attached to his foot,’ recalls Adelino Andrade, who lived near the Aveiro family. ‘When it came to football he was truly gifted,’ maintains Cristiano’s sister, Elma. ‘But we never dreamed he would be where he is today.’
It takes Leo a bit longer to discover his love of football. At three years old, the Flea, as he is known, prefers picture cards and much smaller balls – marbles. He wins multitudes of them from his playmates and his bag is always full. At nursery or at school there is always time to play with round objects. For his fourth birthday, his parents give him a white ball with red diamonds. It is then, perhaps, that the fatal attraction begins. Until one day he surprises everyone. His father and brothers are playing in the street and Leo decides to join the game for the first time. On many other occasions he had preferred to keep winning marbles – but not this time. ‘We were stunned when we saw what he could do,’ says Jorge. ‘He had never played before.’
From that moment on there is no turning back. Football is to become his whole life, just as it has become Cristiano’s, although both players stumble into their first ‘official’ match purely by chance. In fact, there are a lot of similarities in the circumstances. They both go along as spectators, and end up on the pitch. Cristiano’s cousin and best mate Nuno plays for Andorinha. One day he invites him to come and watch a match, and asks if he wants to put on the sky-blue shirt. Cristiano joins the practice and decides to stick around. He is just six years old, and three years later he will be awarded his first sporting licence, number 17,182 in the Funchal football association. Meanwhile he earns the nickname Abelhinha, ‘Little Bee’, as he buzzes non-stop around the pitch. ‘He was fast, he was technically brilliant and he played equally well with his left and right foot,’ says Francisco Afonso, Ronaldo’s former primary school teacher and first coach. ‘He was skinny but he was a head taller than other kids his age. He was undoubtedly extremely gifted – he had a natural talent that was in the genes. He was always chasing the ball, he wanted to be the one to finish the game. He was very focused, he worked equally hard regardless of where he was on the pitch. And whenever he couldn’t play or he missed a game he was devastated.’
That same year, over in Rosario, Leo’s grandmother has been going every Tuesday and Thursday to watch grandsons Rodrigo and Matías train at the Grandoli ground. One summer afternoon, Leo decides to go with them. The coach at that time was Salvador Ricardo Aparicio, aka Don Apa, who passed away at the age of 80. He never forgot the first time he saw the Flea. ‘I needed one more to complete the ’86 team,’ he recalled whenever anyone asked him how he discovered the Barça star. ‘I was waiting for the final player with the shirt in my hands while the others were warming up. But he didn’t show up and there was this little kid kicking the ball against the stands. The cogs were turning and I said to myself, damn … I don’t know if he knows how to play but … So I went to speak to the grandmother, who was really into football, and I said to her: “Lend him to me.” She wanted to see him on the pitch. She had asked me many times to let him try out. On many occasions she would tell me about all the little guy’s talents. The mother, or the aunt, I can’t remember which, didn’t want him to play: “He’s so small, the others are all huge.” To reassure her I told her: “I’ll stand him over here, and if they attack him I’ll stop the game and take him off.”
‘Well, I gave him the shirt and he put it on. The first ball came his way, he looked at it and … nothing. He’s left-footed, that’s why he didn’t get to the ball. The second it came to his left foot, he latched on to it, and went past one guy, then another and another. I was yelling at him: “Kick it, kick it.” He was terrified someone would hurt him but he kept going and going. I don’t remember if he scored the goal – I had never seen anything like it. I said to myself: “That one’s never coming off.” And I never took him off.’
And so begin Cristiano and Leo’s sporting careers. Long before their teens, they are both firmly established in the youth leagues, Messi at Newell’s Old Boys, and Ronaldo at Nacional da Madeira. They are light years ahead of the rest and are soon catching the scouts’ attention. ‘Cristiano’s skills were already highly developed: speed, dribbling, shooting, lightning execution. Street football had taught him how to avoid getting hit, sidestep the opponent and face up to kids much bigger than he was. It had also strengthened his character – he was extremely courageous,’ says António Mendoça, Cristiano’s coach during his two seasons playing in black and white. ‘Leo was something special,’ recalls Ernesto Vecchio, Messi’s second coach at Newell’s. ‘He had wisdom, he could sprint, his passes were spot on; he played for his teammates, but he was capable of going past half the opposing team. Once on the Malvinas School of Football first pitch, the goalie passed him the ball in defence and he ran the length of the pitch and went on to score an incredible goal. He didn’t need to be taught a thing. What can you teach to a Maradona or a Pelé? There are only very tiny things for a coach to correct.’
Now all that remains is to make the crucial journey across the pond to mainland Europe, where CR7 will join Sporting Lisbon, and the Flea will head for FC Barcelona.
Chapter 3
33–27
When it comes to clubs their CVs are rather different – Ronaldo has played for four teams while Messi has stuck with one. It seems like a minor detail, but it is actually quite significant. Would Leo have found it easier to integrate if he had had the chance to experience various different dressing rooms? Can CR7’s alleged arrogance be attributed to having played in four different national championships? Each player’s journey has undoubtedly had an impact on who they are and their achievements to date. Let’s retrace their steps …
2002–03 season
Sporting is Cristiano’s home, it has shaped who he is today. The Lisbon club gave him his first real chance to shine, and was prepared to let him go when he was ready to become a star.
On 1 July 2002, the moment Cristiano has been waiting for finally arrives when he becomes a first team player. He has the backing of Romanian coach László Bölöni, former star midfielder for Steaua Bucharest, who beat Barcelona to the European Cup in 1986. Ronaldo shines in the first few pre-season matches, and the coach makes a few adjustments. The kid is used to playing up front, but the manager puts him on the left wing – he can make good use of his speed there, but it’s also better because he’s not physically up to taking on the opposition defenders yet.
He doesn’t disappoint. He is fast, he has good ball control and he creates trouble for his markers. ‘This boy is one to watch,’ writes Portuguese sports paper Record. ‘He knows how to lose his opponent, he can dribble, and he has a nose for goals.’ And the boy in question has plenty to say after a pre-season match against Paris Saint-Germain: ‘The shareholders have yet to see the real Ronaldo. This is just the beginning.’ He is cheeky, irreverent and very sure of himself. And he is only seventeen years old.
On 14 August 2002 he plays his first competitive match for the Lions against Inter Milan in a Champions League qualifier. Nothing spectacular, but he puts in a good all-round performance. Just one criticism – he makes a bit too much of his solo runs and one-on-one duels. It’s a youthful affectation that will take a few years to correct.
He is certainly capable of entertaining the crowds, and he proves it in his second outing, on 7 October in the Portuguese SuperLiga. The current title holders are at home to Moreirense FC, who have been promoted from the second division. Cristiano is in the starting line-up for the first time, and at seventeen years, eight months and two days old he makes history as Sporting’s youngest ever goalscorer. He scores ‘a monumental, majestic, unbelievable goal … there are not sufficient adjectives to describe this young Sporting prodigy’s achievement’, scream the SportTV commentators.
It’s the 34th minute: Ronaldo gets a backheel from Toñito just over the halfway line, he dodges past two defenders, slaloming back and forth for some 60 metres; he follows it up with a stepover on the edge of the area to wrong-foot another opponent and slides it smoothly past Moreirense goalkeeper João Ricardo, who makes a desperate dash out into the box. But he’s not done yet. He also goes on to make it a comprehensive 3–0 with a spectacular header. The following day the press are raving about him – and not just in Portugal. Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport dedicates its front page to the ‘new Ronaldo’, comparing him with Brazil’s Ronaldo Nazario da Lima, the Portuguese’s favourite player, who at the time is at Real Madrid.
Cristiano’s performances in the Lions’ first team have been outstanding. He has become the fans’ golden boy. But there is a lot of competition up front at Sporting, and by the end of the season he has only started in eleven matches. It hasn’t been a great run for the team. They have failed to qualify for the Champions League group stages, having been beaten 2–0 by Inter in the return leg at the San Siro. They are also out of the UEFA Cup, after losing 1–3 to Serbia’s FK Partizan in Portugal and drawing 3–3 in the second leg. On 1 May 2003 they are knocked out of the Portugal Cup by Naval in the quarter-finals. And they fail to hold on to their league title.
They finish third, 27 points behind José Mourinho’s Porto and sixteen behind Benfica. The season has been something of a washout for the club, but it has been nothing short of life-changing for the young Portuguese player.
