Brazil World Cup winner Ronaldo has said he
believes Lionel Messi is a better player than
Cristiano Ronaldo.
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Ronaldo, who played for both Barcelona and
Real Madrid, told AS it was difficult to choose
but that, on balance, the Argentine was the
more influential and better all-round player.
"I would stick with Messi," he said. "It is
difficult. It is like when you are looking to buy
a house and they offer you many nice ones,
but you need to pick one.
"Messi seems more complete to me, or at least
more decisive. In the important moments, he
appears and scores goals."
Asked about former Real Madrid manager
Jose Mourinho's comments about there being
only one "real" Ronaldo -- "the Brazilian
Ronaldo" -- the three-time FIFA World Player of
the Year said: "This is Mourinho up to his
tricks … I prefer not to get into polemics.
"You must respect everyone's opinion. Each
player writes his own history, and the history
of another player does not erase it. I am
happy to have finished up with what I did."
Ronaldo said he believed there had been
more great players around when he was
playing.
"For me, there is less competition now," he
added. "I do not want to be the typical guy
saying things were better in my day, but I
look around now and I just see those two.
"Maybe Neymar is coming, but he has a long
way to go yet. But in my time there were
many great players. I competed with
[Zinedine] Zidane, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho,
[Michael] Owen, [Luis] Figo, [Gabriel] Batistuta
… there were many players who made their
teams great. Now I just see Cristiano and
Messi, although the truth is they are very, very
good."
He said that while both he and Real's current
Ronaldo were goal scorers, their games were
slightly different.
"We do not look alike when we play," he
explained. "I was more a centre-forward, and
you could say he is a second striker.
"Cristiano, in his most recent stage at Madrid,
has learned to score goals. And scoring goals
is the most beautiful thing in the world. If you
score so many goals, you must be very good.
Nobody scores a lot of goals by getting lucky."
www.espn.go.com/soccer/story?storyId=1558339&section=soccernetfrontpage&top&wjb=

This is the whole truth; the real Ronaldo has spoken. Viva Messi d 'flea'

Original Ronaldo had said it all

CR7 is very good but Messi is better