Big Mess or Ron riot!
HOW CAN ANYONE STOP MESSI AND RONALDO?
BEATING Rafael Nadal on centre court at the French Open, stopping LeBron James one on one, knocking-out Floyd Mayweather… nothing is impossible in sport, but there are challenges that hardly anyone can meet. Preventing Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo from scoring goals is one of those challenges.
Messi and Ronaldo are the two most brilliant football players since 2000, and they will be taking to Russia a two-man clash that seems never-ending.
Messi is set to turn 31 on June 24, while Ronaldo already turned 33 in February.
However, they are still the world’s two best players albeit with very different styles.
They share the same objective, namely to score goals and lead their team to victory but their means differ.
The Argentina captain has changed his position over the years, f r om s t r i ker t o a l l - purpose midfielder, while the Portugal star man has gone from winger to a striker capable of scoring all sorts of goals.
When he was younger, Ronaldo was extremely fast. He was never one to run with the ball as if it were sewn to his feet, but his runs from the left towards the centre, leaving rivals behind, are well known.
Now it is difficult for him to run faster than defenders, but he does not seem worried. He is no longer a sprinter but has become a killer striker.
Messi also started out down the wing until Pep Guardiola moved him to attacking midfielder during a game where Barcelona beat Real Madrid 6-2 at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. That was when Messi became a world-class player.
“Stopping Messi i s almost impossible,” says Spain leftback Jordi Alba, his teammate at Barca.
“I struggled with him when I Azzurri, played at Valencia.
“He is different from anyone else because he can get away from everyone. To stop him, rivals need to be very close together.”
Retired defender Carles Puyol, a world and European champion with Spain who shared countless training sessions with Messi at Barcelona, agrees.
“I had to mark Leo many times, and for me it is virtually impossible to do,” Puyol told dpa.
Is it better to man-mark Messi or is a tactical plan to always surround him more likely to succeed?
Assigning one defender to take care of Messi may sound like a good idea, but it is extremely risky, given the Argentinian’s dribbling skills.
“He can get past anyone in the blinking of an eye,” his former manager Carlo Ancelotti said.
“A man-to-man defence is very complicated with him, because the defender would have to play at an extremely high level.
“The best way to minimise Messi’s impact takes great effort from the whole team, reducing the distance between players to prevent him from getting the ball,” Ancelotti said in 2016, in a column for the Chinese magazine Sina Sports.
The Italian, who was Real Madrid manager 2013-15, believes that, if Messi is at his best, there is simply no way to stop him.
Something similar applies to Ronaldo, who seems to have some sort of magnet that attracts the football.
Without it, it would be impossible to understand how most crosses, most corner kicks and most passes into the box end up on his head or his boot.
He has become a specialist when it comes to one-touch goals.
“He used to be a No. 7 who could shoot, now he is a monster No. 9.
“His strength springs from wanting to be the best at all costs, all the time,” Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini told Spanish daily El Mundo just days before Ronaldo scored off an amazing bicycle kick during the Champions League game against Juventus.
So far, not one team has been able to stop Ronaldo and Messi, two men who have been playing major tournaments for a decade.
Brazil 2014 was said to come at the perfect time for them but both failed to make any impact. Now, four years on, they are still at the top but time is running out.
Few would doubt that they still will have plenty of say on the pitch in Russia.
How about Qatar 2022? Puyol will not rule it out.
“People want to send them into retirement very fast, and they still have plenty of top-performance football in their boots,” he told dpa.
“They may be able to compete until they are 35 or 36, particularly them, who are very professional, they take good care of themselves.
If they escape injuries, they may even get to the next (World Cup), if they want to.” – dpa