Take a look inside the feud between the Poseur and the Dwarf
THEY have spent the last six years as direct rivals on the pitch and on the Ballon d’Or short-list yet we have never seen them sharing so much as a post-match conversation, much less swapping shirts. As Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo prepare to face each other at Old Trafford on Tuesday, PETE JENSON looks at the rivalry and asks: do they really despise each other or is there a begrudging mutual respect?
UNPLEASANT NICKNAMES
In his book about Jose Mourinho’s three years at Real Madrid, Diego Torres wrote that some of the people around Ronaldo had taken to referring to Messi as ‘the dwarf’ whenever they discussed him. The term seems to have been applied to motivate Ronaldo and convince him that he was better than the four-times Ballon d’Or winner. What Torres never suggests is that the derogatory comment ever came from Ronaldo himself.
In Guillem Ballagué’s book Messi, Ronaldo is said to refer to the Barcelona player as ‘Cabronazo’ in the Real Madrid dressing room. The Spanish swearword is translated as a particularly colourful epithet in the English version of the book but could just as easily be rendered as ‘bastard’, which in the context of a psyched-up dressing room before a Clasico would be nothing out of the ordinary. Ronaldo denies every disrespecting Messi, tweeting in midweek: ‘I have the utmost respect for all my professional colleagues, and Messi is obviously no exception.’
THE WAGES WAR
Much of Ronaldo’s Messidirected ire stems from his sense of injustice at not always being treated the same. At the 2012 European Footballer of the Year ceremony, Ronaldo was furious that then Barcelona president Sandro Rosell accompanied Messi and eventual winner Andres Iniesta to the presentation while Real Madrid president Florentino Perez stayed at home, sending lowranking director Pedro Lopez in his place. Ronaldo at the time was also entering his fourth season at the club still with his original deal in place while it seemed Messi’s contract was being improved on an almost half-yearly basis. By September 2013 Perez had awarded Ronaldo a new five-year deal worth £21million a season putting him above Messi, whose deal was renewed at the end of the season to restore parity.
THE IMAGE
For years Messi came across as the shy, humble, boy wonder while Ronaldo was the brash poseur with the model girlfriend. But the image of both men has changed.
Reporters at Portugal’s World Cup play-off win over Sweden in 2013 will never forget Ronaldo’s three-yearold son, Ronaldo jnr, leading the way into the press area to tell the media ‘he never fails’ after his father’s goal had given Portugal a 1-0 lead.
When Ronaldo stopped to answer questions there was a tug on the trouser leg from his son who had the media in stitches saying: ‘Let’s go, daddy, I am sleeping with you tonight?’
But while Ronaldo’s image has softened, Messi’s has hardened. A tax avoidance case against him and his father is going through the courts. And he has been depicted as an at-times authoritarian figure in the Barca dressing room. It is claimed that after Real won 2-1 in Pep Guardiola’s last Clasico in 2012, the coach sought out Messi only to be dismissed by the player who said: ‘What you should have done is pick a team to win, instead of what you did do.’
It is also said that Messi texted from the back of the team bus to Guardiola at the front criticising him for giving Zlatan Ibrahimovic Messi’s central-striking berth in one game in 2009.
Ronaldo and Messi have not exactly swapped personas. It is still Ronaldo who steps out with Russian model Irina Shayk, and Messi is unlikely to become an underwear model anytime soon, but the pair are no longer quite at opposite ends of the personality scale they once were. Both are doting dads and can be driven and dominating forces in the dressing room.
INTERNATIONAL LET-DOWNS
Another thing that unites them has been their failure to deliver on the international stage. Ronaldo went home after the group matches of this summer’s World Cup and was the subject of more headlines off the pitch than on it with constant concerns over his fitness and a bizarre topless model stalker, the former Miss Bumbum, having to be banned from Portugal’s training sessions.
Messi had a better tournament but was still unable to emulate Diego Maradona by winning the trophy as Argentina lost to Germany in the final. Both men will now probably finish their careers without a winners medal and both will understand the frustration of not being able to meet national expectations.
AN OLD TRAFFORD EMBRACE?
Will these shared sentiments help bring about a thaw in relations as they meet in relatively friendly circumstances on Tuesday? Or will club allegiances and their ongoing battle to stay ahead in the Ballon d’Or stakes, and in the all-time Champions League goals table, keep the cold war going until they both hang up their boots? The Messi-Ronaldo embrace will no doubt come one day. Tuesday might still be too soon.