A poll of former professional footballers has revealed that majority of players surveyed believe Cristiano Ronaldo has had a better career than Lionel Messi.
The two superstars have long been the subjects of an ongoing debate intended to determine once and for all which player has accomplished more in their glittering careers.
But in survey of ex-pros conducted by The Athletic, two-thirds of respondents claim that they believe the Manchester United forward has had the superior career of the pair.
Interestingly, whilst the respondents appeared to favour Ronaldo's achievements in the game when comparing the two directly, the former professionals preferred Messi as a hypothetical teammate.
Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed said that they would have prefered to play alongside the the former Barcelona great as opposed to his Portuguese counterpart.
The only major trophy still alluding the two stars is the World Cup, and with both men in the latter half of their thirties, the upcoming tournament in Qatar could prove to be their final opportunity to settle the ongoing debate.
The survey also provided a variety of interesting insights regarding how former players view the game.
57 per cent of those surveyed believed that the standard of officiating has improved since their playing days.
In addition to this, just over half of respondents believed that the life of a football was more difficult today compared to when they were active professionals, with social media cited as the most common response as to why life is harder for footballers now.
ElenaLopez
95
Zlatan Ibrahimovic on Leo Messi:🗣 "Lionel Messi doesn't need his sister's Instagram handles to defend him like Cristiano Ronaldo. The only thing Cristiano has over Messi is Height and age. next joke pls
N0_N0NsENSE
62
Media goat for a reason 🤣🤣
Potterjrn
61
Those people can’t compete with Messi 🙂😂😂
ManUtdAmadDialo
54
Hello everybody. Hope u all are enjoying. Jst like football enjoys Leo Messii's feet
Mohkudan
47
Messi scored more goals in 30 minutes than Ronaldo in the last 11 games 😭😂😭😂😂😭
Nash_FCB
43
Ronaldo can only be compared to Messi when Goals are being discussed, but when talking about other statistics on the pitch like Assists, chances creation, dribbling, play making, the only person he's better currently is SAMUEL UMTITI🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Mangisha
32
Let's reasons a bit here. We are not children, we are grown ups. How has Ronaldo have had a better career than Messi? In terms of what EXACTLY? Yes he does have more goals than Messi, but that's like less than 60 goals despite him playing more than 100 games than Messi. And it's end there. Messi dominates everything else including many career assists, many career trophies - both individual and team trophies. For earth's sake, Messi has played in a WC final, Ronaldo hasn't and may never. Exactly what has Ronaldo done that makes him better than Messi? If you are going to judge who has had a better career, aren't you supposed to measure the trophies they have won, the numbers, such? So some Ronaldo fan just posted on some website "who had a better career btn Messi and Ronaldo", and Ronaldo fans flocked to vote. Came here, and said "former footballers". With Ronaldo so quiet recently, with nothing good seemly happening in his camp, they had to bring this up. To cheer themselves up. Good try.