The Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo debate has reached a level of polarization that no one ever needs to make a good argument for either to be better anymore. You could almost say the exact same thing like, "Messi/Cristiano's goals are more decisive, therefore he is the greatest of all time" and the fans of the name you picked will agree, and the fans of the other will disagree automatically.

The number of people I know who changed their minds during discussions or after certain events is slim to none. The level of polarization in this debate is not normal at all. So any argument, regardless of how logical or illogical it may be, regarding how convincing or not convincing it may be, if you love Messi/Cristiano it won't make you love Messi/Cristiano more, and if you don't, then it won't make you do.

The reason behind this is that Messi and Cristiano's achievements have become the reference in football, once someone has the edge in a certain category, it becomes all that matters. So, most people in this debate don't have a set of standards that they use to evaluate, it all depends on what Messi and Cristiano did or did not do. It is literally celebrity worship. They have become the reference down from the silliest of things to the most important.

My Personal Opinion

Just so people don't think I have no preference here, I do prefer Messi 100%. In fact, I see those who don't see the difference and don't really understand the game. Or maybe they're just biased. Most likely they are biased because the difference is too clear to miss, it doesn't require an analyst to call it.

At some point, thanks to Cristiano's propaganda machine and Mourinho, the race turned toward the number of goals which should have worked perfectly for Cristiano, but Messi, despite not being the closest to the goal in his team, still managed to outscore Cristiano many times, Messi is still doing better than Cristiano in terms of goals per minutes. This leads me to my point.

The Stupid Comparisons

Even though Messi has a better goal ratio and is very likely to end his career outscoring Cristiano, which would have made this debate much easier to win, goals are the dumbest way to compare two players. Judging two legendary players based on goals should be a football crime. It is a Twitter banter, just kick and run. You put down a Tweet with certain stats and then just ignore the conversation. This is the style of someone just aiming to win the argument at the moment without thinking about anything.

Goals and trophies are among tens of variables, but that would depend on whether you are actually interested in finding an answer. You realize how stupid these comparisons are once you start applying them elsewhere, Zlatan Ibrahimović vs Luis Suárez for example. There's a fight that very few people care about.

Outside The Bubble

Once you leave the Messi vs Cristiano bubble, you realize how dumb everything said inside it is. Just imagine asking a friend who is better between Zlatan Ibrahimović and Luis Suárez then they go to open who scored more and give you the answer: "Well, Zlatan scored 558 goals while Suárez only scored 520 goals, therefore, Zlatan is better". Now, because this is an argument that actually requires you to think and not follow your bias, you'd actually be open to saying things you wouldn't say in the Messi vs Cristiano.

Now, if someone says Zlatan is better, you'd then break down all the variables like the age difference, leagues, type of teams, the struggles, the titles, assists, data, coaches, teammates, and all the different variables you wouldn't love bringing up when saying "Messi/Cristiano is better".

Imagine being a Liverpool fan and seeing Liverpool perform horribly and Salah wasn't scoring, would it be fair to say "I don't care, he should be scoring either way", well, if that's the case then how is football a team's game? If players were supposed to score anyway, then why bother creating a team and a system?

The Silliest of Data

Goals and assists are the silliest of data, these are things that are just there for fantasy football players. Goals, assists, and clean sheets, that's the essence of fantasy football. These are things that were made for non-football fans, people who don't watch the games, not for people who actually sit for an hour and a half for a football match, then why are people inside that bubble talking about football the way people who never watch football do?

I actually blame Cristiano Ronaldo and Mourinho largely for this. In 2013 in specific, that's when the pair decided that goals are all that matters, those social media fights are to be won with goals and nothing else matters. When people were talking about Messi's dribbles and assists, the response was that all of that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered is the number of goals and who scored them.

Cristiano and Mourinho said it more than once, Cristiano scored more goals therefore he should be the winner of the Ballon d'Or. And the Ballon d'Or, much like any individual reward benefitted from those fights and would only show those silliest of stats before presenting the award. This is also the reason goalkeepers, defenders, and midfielders never won it afterwards with the exception of Modrić, and even Modrić needed Real Madrid's propaganda machine and a super start performance at the World Cup to win it.

Bear in mind that I am not talking here about Cristiano and Mourinho's fanboys, I am talking about them personally, their countless interviews, especially Cristiano since Mourinho stopped caring about that and gave contradicting opinions afterwards. But, Cristiano, in specific, and you could see that in the interviews and even when Atletico Madrid was winning against Real Madrid and he was gesturing the number of the UEFA Champions League he won opposite to theirs, it is Cristiano who made the debate this way.

I remember it clearly in the 2017-2018 season when people asked Cristiano about his declining performance and his response was to point out how many goals he scored in the UEFA Champions League knockout stages. The same thing happened this year in Manchester when he pointed out that he was the top scorer of the team as if goals just come out of nowhere.

The clearest indication of how dumb this standard happens to be is that it is Cristiano's fanboys that are complaining about it. When Messi was scoring in France, the argument became "he plays in the farmers league", and it's a guarantee that these people won't mind counting the goals he scores in the Saudi League, AFC Cup, and AFC Champions League to the tally without context later.

But, it was during this year when we saw videos and threads about how Cristiano passes and applies pressure with the team when he wasn't scoring. All these intangibles that were brought up before and mocked by Cristiano and his fanboys became now important.

In Conclusion

The Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo bubble is something filled with idiotic comparisons and the silliest of data, it's nothing to go by because the moment those stats and data don't go their favourite star's way they are the first people who throw them through the window. It's a silly fight, that ruined a lot of prospects for how football is viewed. It's a waste of time that I doubt any sane football fan would take it seriously.