Ronaldo's Portugal dispute as Messi enjoys Argentina farewell feels fitting for their iconic rivalry

Maybe it was inevitable, given how entwined their careers have been. But the comparison is irresistible. As Lionel Messi is lauded in Argentina during his farewell game, his great rival Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal career appears to be ending in acrimony.

For Messi enthusiasts, the temptation is to conclude that it tells you everything about the two men. For Ronaldo's mores vociferous fans, it is proof of a player not being given his due. Why is he not being afforded such status after doing so much for his country?

Ronaldo started the narrow win over Wales without scoring but was benched for the trip to Norway and was so frustrated by not coming on that he departed the camp. Portugal won that match and coach Jorge Jesus has followed it up with two more in his absence.

"I am not apologising to anyone," said Jesus in the aftermath. "If I need you for 30 minutes, you will play. If I don't need you, you won't play. No player will ever change my ideas as a coach. Not him, not any president, no one." It was not exactly placatory.

"In due course, I will tell the Portuguese people the truth about the reasons behind my departure." That was Ronaldo's own dark declaration, hinting at a justifiable explanation for all this. Jesus has since left the door ajar but is Ronaldo ready to walk through it?

Jesus and Ronaldo worked together at Al Nassr with no indication that it would implode like this. But their characters put them on this collision course. The cantankerous Jesus was never likely to be prone to the obsequiousness that undermined his predecessor.

And so, faced with a Nations League game in which Portugal were holding on for a precious victory away to Erling Haaland's Norway, Jesus was guided by game state not the glorification of the superstar warming up on his bench. It proved an incendiary call.

The precise details of it were hardly predictable. But it is difficult to escape the feeling that on some level this was always coming. This is a 41-year-old man fighting a battle he cannot win. Not against the Portuguese football administration but against time itself.

Ronaldo is two years older than Messi. He is beyond the age at which Pele was filming Escape to Victory and the bloated figure of Diego Maradona was enjoying Boca Juniors wins from his balcony. Johan Cruyff was coaching Barcelona at 41 not playing for them.

Kudos to him for even competing at all.

But this is not a man capable of accepting competition, of appreciating that Goncalo Ramos, a £60m signing by AC Milan just this summer, might be worthy of minutes instead of him. Every decision risks disrespect, every slight becomes easily magnified.

His admirers will insist that this is part of what has made him great and there is doubtless some truth to it. Scaling such heights in the game is astonishing enough as it is. Without an ego and a certain main-character energy it is surely all but impossible.

As such, the tragedy of this story is that the very trait that caused him to soar is the same quality in him that has brought it all crashing down in the end. How do you persuade Portugal's sporting colossus to be a squad player? It turns out to be tricky.

Ronaldo has dedicated his life to being the very best, not to sitting on the bench and hoping for a cameo. And certainly not to be told that he will be playing 30 minutes away to Norway only to discover that the coach has had a change of heart once in Oslo.

Ronaldo has long faced accusations of selfishness. There were always the understated celebrations on the rare occasions when he was not central to the success. But it rarely reared its head when his own feats was so obviously tied to the fortunes of the team.

The problem was always likely to come when what is best for Ronaldo and what is best for Portugal became misaligned. There had been hints of that under Fernando Santos and certainly under Roberto Martinez. It has fallen on Jesus to manage the inevitable.

Maybe this is not yet the end. Jesus himself has suggested that the situation is easily resolvable. It remains unthinkable that there will not be some sort of send-off akin to the one that Messi will enjoy in the Estadio Monumental in front of 80,000 adoring fans.

There is even a scenario where Ronaldo scores his 1000th goal while wearing a Portugal shirt. But while Messi's big day will be a messianic celebration, expect Ronaldo's finale, whenever it finally comes, to be one fraught with tension, a vast ego being managed.

Some might say it was ever thus.