Manchester United legend Ruud van Nistelrooy has claimed 'nobody comes close' to Lionel Messi as the best footballer in the world.
Messi has made the 2019 shortlist for the Ballon d'Or award - an accolade he has picked up five times in his career - and van Nistelrooy believes he is the only player who deserves the prestigious honour.
'There is no-one who is at his level, he seems to play like a Playstation player', the former Holland striker told Sport.
'Nobody comes close to Messi. Tell me who... Cristiano (Ronaldo) is a goal scorer, (Andres) Iniesta is a brain, (Mohamed) Salah, (Sadio) Mané, (Eden) Hazard and (Kylian) Mbappé are excellent players, but Messi is all that together.'
The comment may come as a surprise to anyone familiar with van Nistelrooy's career, as he played alongside Messi's rival Cristiano Ronaldo at both Manchester United and Real Madrid.
Back in September, Messi won the Men's Player of the Year at FIFA's The Best awards - getting one-up on the Dutchman's old team mate Ronaldo and Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk.
Ruud van Nistelrooy had a long and successful career across European football in which he scored 324 goals in 515 competitive matches.
The 43-year-old is now the coach for PSV Eindhoven's under-19's team. The former striker spent three seasons at Eredivisie club between 1998 and 2001 before making his £25million move to Manchester United.
He is best known for his time at Old Trafford where he scored a total of 98 Premier League goals in 150 appearances; narrowly missing out on the illustrious '100 club'.
van Nistelrooy also held a very impressive Champions League record with 56 goals and 14 assists in 73 matches. He is the fifth highest scorer in the history of the competition - behind Karim Benzema, Raul, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi is currently on 112 goals in the competition, 15 goals behind the all-time highest goalscorer Ronaldo.
The winner of the 2019 Ballon d'Or award will be announced on December 2nd.
Khalifybinney
1014
Your girlfriend can break your heart but i recommed you to sit down and watch messi video on you tube because it will relieve the stress and the pain in your heart and you will notice there is someone who can put a smile on my face anytime than my unworthy girlfriend... 😌😌 This nice man
raynknight
650
There's Rooney , Van Nistelrooy, ALex Ferguson, RauL and many more Legendary Teammates of CR7 who openLy said that Messi is The GOAT and aLso the current ReaL Madrid No.7 said it There's isn't two Best, There is onLy one , Messi' ..... and now name me one Messi's Teammate who said CR7 is GOAT , even a singLe name , pLz ... Accept the Fact Haters , Messi is the Greatest of aLL time !
Siakmstz
458
I seriously don’t know why people always talk about football with sentiments,when you wanna compare a footballer,you’re meant to compare the player’s performance individually and don’t be biased or sentimental when doing your comparism. If you wish to compare Lionel Messi with Cristiano Ronaldo then your comparism should be based on these statistics which are their various individual performance both for their clubs and country sides,the number of personal awards/individual accomplishments,their individual goals and goal ratios,their head to head between each other and the total of trophies won by the two of them respectively,these statistics which i just listed should give you a better answer on who’s the best among the two of them. For those who say Ronaldo is better than Messi because he has won a trophy with Portuguese senior team while Messi hasn’t won any trophy with Argentina national team,i want you to remember that you can’t have everything in life and not all those great players won all the trophies that their various clubs participated in,for example,Delima Ronaldo played for clubs that won the UEFA champions league but he never won it,Diego Maradona won the World Cup but he never won the UEFA champions League despite playing for Barcelona and Napoli in Europe,the almighty Brazil great Pelé won the World Cup but he didn’t win the Olympic gold medal and Pelé once said in an interview that he did give one of the World Cup trophies which he won just to win an Olympic gold medal,Liverpool great Steven Gerard never won the English premier league despite playing for Liverpool in the premier league for more than 20 years,Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t win any trophy with the Portuguese junior national teams despite playing for them while Lionel Messi won virtually all the trophies in junior level with the Argentina junior national team including the golden boy award,i will love to continue but let me just stop here. One thing we should all bear in mind is that nobody on earth has it all,it’s as simple as that!
raynknight
431
Van Nistelrooy - 'Nobody comes close to Messi. Tell me who... Cristiano (Ronaldo) is a goal scorer, (Andres) Iniesta is a brain, (Mohamed) Salah, (Sadio) Mané, (Eden) Hazard and (Kylian) Mbappé are excellent players, but Messi is all that together.' Mamma Mia ! How True Rud Van Nistelrooy is 😊
Bm_Bilal_Khan
328
Here is Messi
rucostuz
323
Truth is Ruud is entitled to his opinion, everyone is , but if you guys don’t know the relationship btw Ruud and ronaldo and how bad it was then you guys should google it,., RONALDO WAS THE REASON RUUD WAS SOLD TO MADRID... they literally fought... ANYONE CAN PREFER ONE TO THE OTHER , it’s normal, it’s all about preference, but trust me at the end of there illustrious careers , tell me who had a better career ??? Ronaldo is gonna break the goal scoring record and set a new one , he may win his 6th ucl with juve .. making him the only player to do that... 3 times with 3 diff teams.., and he has won 2 of 3 finals with his national side .., Messi is the most brilliant and talented player ever , but let’s be real he is Barcelona and laliga greatest player , 4 finals , 4 losses ...your talent or hardwork must make you win trophies ...
litblyz
313
it is absurd for him to compare messi with King CR7. messi is messi at Barcelona whilst CR7 was CR7 at Man United,Real Madrid,Portugal and even now at juventus.....Let us accept that CR7 is of another world in terms of football
Cuwabistu
271
karan1995
219
almost all player who played with ronaldo accept that messi is best...... example vaan and rooney😂😂😂😂😂😂 now Ronaldo fans will hate me and vaan
Raeaeilopt
98
once again a legend talks about the real GOAT, a multiple skill player who does everything very well at the highest level!! ladys and gentlemen: i am presenting u the real GOAT: Lional Messi