Messi, Ronaldo dazzle the world

The world of football will forever be indebted to Messi and Ronaldo for their unmatched brilliance and longevity. Football has never seen such dominance by two players in the past. While Ronaldo and Messi take the cake, minnows Leicester City’s stunning Premier League triumph in 2016 was one of the greatest underdog stories. And the World Cup expansion will boost the UAE’s chances of qualifying for the showpiece event

Never has the beautiful game seen two players fight tooth and nail for supremacy until the arrival of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. In fact, it’s been 11 years now that these two supreme players have dazzled the world of football with their individual brilliance. Such has been their dominance that Luka Modric, the Real Madrid playmaker whose vision guided Croatia to the 2018 World Cup final, became the only player in the past 11 years to break the Messi-Ronaldo monopoly on the Ballon d’Or. Messi (6) and Ronaldo (5) share 11 Ballon d’Or awards between them. While Ronaldo has won the league titles in England (Manchester United), Spain (Real Madrid) and Italy (Juventus), Messi has been the classic example of one-club man. The 32-yearold Barcelona superstar has won seven La Liga and two Champions League titles in the past 10 years, while the 34-year-old Ronaldo has won two La Liga titles (Real Madrid), one Serie A title (Juventus) and four Champions League titles with Real in the same period. Both Messi and Ronaldo have scored more than 50 goals in a season six times each in the past 10 years. While the world of football has been unable to come to the conclusion on who is better between the two, Ronaldo’s triumph at the 2016 Euro with Portugal gives him a slight edge. Messi failed to grab his chance when Argentina lost to Germany 1-0 in the 2014 World Cup final. Messi also lost two Copa America finals with Argentina, the second of which pushed him to international retirement. But his quick U-turn did provide inspiration to the struggling Argentina as his hat trick in the do-or-die 2018 World Cup qualifier against Ecuador helped the two-time world champions book their tickets to Russia where they bowed out in the second round with a 4-3 defeat to eventual winners France. While Ronaldo attained immortality at the 2016 Euro, Messi’s drought at the international level has left his millions of fans heartbroken. Having said that the world of football will forever be indebted to Messi and Ronaldo for their unmatched brilliance and longevity. But who could be the next superstar once these two giants decide to hang up their boots? It seems Frenchman Kylian Mbappe has what it takes to be a superstar in the next decade. The PSG striker was unstoppable at the 2018 World Cup as his speed and goals left rival teams clueless. The explosive 21-year striker has already scored 122 goals for club and country.

Leicester City’s remarkable Premier League triumph in 2016 after starting the season as 5,000-1 outsiders to win the title made the pages of the press around the world. Leicester clinched the English league title for the first time in their 132-year history when secondplaced Tottenham Hotspur drew with Chelsea, leaving them too far behind the leaders with only two games left to play. Praise poured in around the world for Leicester, who were on the brink of relegation in the previous season. France Football led with the news that “Leicester has achieved the impossible,” while Germany’s Bild said: “Europe’s biggest football sensation - Leicester’s title miracle is real.” The British press reports were no less glowing. From “Zeroes into heroes” (Metro) to “history makers” (Daily Mirror), Claudio Ranieri’s men were lauded all round, with the Sun and Daily Star highlighting the end to Leicester’s anxious wait with a simple “Blue done it”. The Foxes’ dream run was given a Shakespearean touch by the Guardian, who declared the side “Kings of England” with a picture of Richard III, whose bones are buried in Leicester. The accolades were also heaped on manager Claudio Ranieri, who has never won the top flight title before in his 30-year managerial career. He was “King Claudio” in his home country Italy’s La Gazetta dello Sport, which portrayed him as a Romanesque statue, while Tuttosport hailed him the “King of England”.

Former Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola said bitter rivals Real Madrid were a “spectacular” side after they won their third Champions League title in a row — their 13th European title — in Kiev last year. Manchester City manager Guardiola, whose side were eliminated in the Champions League semifinals by beaten finalists Liverpool, praised Zinedine Zidane’s team. The Catalan coach was at the helm of Barcelona between 2008 and 2012, one of the most fierce periods in the rivalry between Spain’s two biggest sides. “When a team wins three Champions Leagues in a row, four in five years, it means they are a spectacular side,” Guardiola told reporters at an event held by the Johan Cruyff foundation in Barcelona. “They control knock-out games very well and I can only take my hat off to them. To win three consecutive Champions Leagues shows the quality of the team, the coach and the club. And everyone else must now try to stop them winning the fourth.” In the 2016 final, Real beat city rivals Atletico Madrid on penalties after the game ended in a 1-1 draw. Next year, they outclassed Juventus 4-1 in the final. Last year, it was the turn of Liverpool to get a taste of the bitter Real medicine as they lost 3-1 in the final. Real had also won the 2014 final with a 4-1 win over Atletico in the final.

Brazil rode a wave of emotion, patriotism and prayer to reach the 2014 World Cup semifinals but it was a day when the weight of expectation caught up with them on home soil. Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari tried to explain their 7-1 defeat by Germany in purely footballing terms, saying their opponents played superbly and took their chances against a Brazil side that played poorly. But that is only half the story. In truth, the Brazilians lost the match in their heads as much as on the pitch. “Let’s put it into context. The hosts were unable to cope with the pressure,” Germany coach Joachim Loew told reporters after the astonishing match. “After two goals, they were confused and they never got re-organised. We realised they were cracking up and we took advantage of it.” After the final whistle, midfielder Luis Gustavo and left back Marcelo fell to the ground in prayer, as some fans wept, others booed, and many just looked on openmouthed. Throughout the tournament, the Brazilian players entered the pitch with hands on each others’ shoulders, praying, crossing themselves and sometimes crying with emotion. Whereas that showed their passion, it also pointed to anxiety and an emotional fragility that contributed to their downfall.

Fifa voted in 2017 to expand the World Cup to 48 teams from its current 32, brushing aside concerns that the expansion would lower the overall standard of the tournament and make it too big and unwieldy. Fifa president Gianni Infantino, fulfilling a promise he made during 2016 election campaign, said the move meant that “more can participate and many more will have a chance to dream”. “It’s not the 20th century any more. It’s the 21st century. Football is more than Europe and South America. Football is global,” he said. “The football fever you have in a country that qualifies for the World Cup is the biggest promotion of the sport you can have.” Fifa’s 211 member associations each hold one vote in the presidential election, and 135 of them have never played at a World Cup, so expansion of the tournament was always likely to appeal. The new format, to be introduced in 2026, will feature a first round of 16 groups of three teams, with the top two in each qualifying for a round of 32. From then on, it would be a straightforward knockout contest. But this will obviously give a chance to emerging football countries like Vietnam as Asia will have eight slots from 2026. Backed by a booming economy, they have invested big on their youth football programme and they are following the Japanese model. They have started it apparently about 15 years ago as they knew the World Cup would be expanded. And of course, this will also boost the UAE’s chances to qualify for the showpiece event.

The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) was used for the first time in a World Cup final to award France a 38thminute penalty which Antoine Griezmann scored to give them a 2-1 lead over Croatia. Referee Nestor Pitana was alerted to a possible handball and after checking the off-field screen he decided Ivan Perisic had handled the ball in trying to clear a French set-piece. The match at the Luzhniki Stadium had already seen the first own goal in a World Cup final when the ball flicked off Croatia striker Mario Manduzkic and past his own keeper to put France 1-0 up after 18 minutes. Fifa has declared the use of VAR at the World Cup in Russia a success. But many Premier League managers have been skeptical about the VAR after it was introduced in the 2019-2020 season. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says changes need to be made to make VAR a success. “VAR can be improved, it can. It will never be 100 per cent accurate, everybody knows that. But there are a couple of things that are not right,” Klopp said. “There is still space for mistakes. These things are done by human beings and none of us is perfect. Nobody is asking for perfection, you just want to have the right decisions.”