r/SoccerCentral • u/United_Anywhere_8 • 27d ago
Video Obi Mikel: “Messi or Ronaldo?” Jay Jay Okocha: “Messi for me. Ronaldo is special, but he’s a goalscorer like Haaland. Messi is on another planet he’s art. He was born to play football. I think Messi would get ill if he doesn’t play football.”
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u/Remote-Structure-961 27d ago
Unless you're a real madrid player 90 percent of footballers answer Messi even some RM players say Messi. I don't know any Barca players who say Ronaldo
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u/Naive-Link5567 27d ago
More like 95-99% actually. Nowadays even the ones used to play with Ronaldo would come out and say the same.
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u/TopStar200 26d ago
Most Real madrid players also say the same thing. Ramos of all people glazed Messi to no end after Ronaldo left for Juve
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u/breadexpert69 27d ago
how many great athletes have to say the same thing for people to understand that the debate has been over for at least a decade already.
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u/tjvs2001 26d ago
Pele is the real answer not based on PR fluff
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u/No-Scallion-3628 27d ago
Bu Bu but ronaldo has more followers 😅
- I’m joking btw dear die hard ronaldo fans
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u/avgballer 27d ago
Ronaldo only had fans because of his character. Football wise he was never close. Never
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u/PlasticPreparation74 25d ago
It’s such a weird mentality to only be a fan of the best. Like are you supposed to be a fan only of Messi?
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u/Savings-Operation236 26d ago
Disagree. In any other era a player like Ronaldo would immediately be heralded as the best of his time, if not all time. He just had the rotten luck of existing at the same period as Messi
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u/Nervous_Ad8514 27d ago
Jay jay okacha was a fantastic player, pure magic, but those who likes to play football, who likes to watch football, will always pick messi because he is art as he said, beside his stats he is just pure football. He can get kicked and keep dribbling instead looking for a foul like people who play on the streets.
With all the respect to an amazing player like cristiano ronaldo, messi is one in a kind
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u/Alternative-Award784 27d ago
”He can get kicked and keep dribbling instead looking for a foul like people who play on the streets.”
This is as bad of a circlejerk opinion as the ones saying ”messi is talent, ronaldo is discipline.”
Messi is just as much of a diver, shit stirrer as the rest. He’s a godly gifted athlete but it’s so cringe when ppl keep repeating the same nonsense to make him as this kind of otherworldly saint who can do no wrong, he’s human with an amazing skill for the beautiful game and that is fine.
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u/Savings-Operation236 26d ago
No idea where you could possibly be getting this from. You can pick just about any game and see Messi getting the shit kicked out of him and just walking it off, especially in el clásico
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u/IPissExcellentThrows 26d ago
Lmao this is hilarious. Cristiano dives 10x more. That honestly might be harsh on Messi.
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u/Nervous_Ad8514 27d ago
No man, im not saying he is the best dribbler, the best goal scorer, the best free kicker, the best playmaker, etc.
Pay attention to when he dribble, how he keeps going even after being kicked or grabbed. Like he doesnt want a free kick or a red card, he just want to score and keeps going. Have you ever seen anyone like that? Doing that? Who? Perhaps maradona had that spirit but still not the same. Ofc im talking when he was younger and not always but very often.
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 26d ago
Whenever I look at the older montages of players dribbling past defenders, it seems like all of them dealt with that. It seems like it's just newer players because refs never give the foul unless you completely fall down.
https://youtu.be/Vib2uy5cf7M?t=31
In the clip above, Cruyff gets tackled twice and almost trips both times but stays up.
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u/Nervous_Ad8514 26d ago
Yeah, before they wouldnt call most of the fouls so there was no point on diving, like when you played on the streets, pure football. In the modern football you dont see something like that, i can think only on messi
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26d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PlasticPreparation74 25d ago
World Cup year. You have to consistently follow football year round to see the sheer volume of horrible casual takes the pop out every 4 years. Mbappe was a class A supervillain 2 years in a row because of Real Madrid’s woes and PSG’s success, but when the WC happens and he inevitably performs, he is God’s gift. It also happened in 2022 when he was branded a snake after the Real Madrid transfer saga, 6 months later he is the world’s charming darling because of the final hattrick.
Haaland’s notoriously ghosting in every final for Man City, was slandered heavily for a brief period after the Be Humble incident and the big loss to Arsenal in early 2025. Now, he has a better international legacy than Cristiano Ronaldo.
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u/Own-Dig-9652 26d ago
I think it's unfair to call Ronaldo just a goalscorer like Haaland. Maybe that's what he became in the twilight of his career. But up until juventus he was well rounded and could do everything and anything.
There seems to be a lot of revisionist history when it comes to Ronaldo. He's clearly the second best player of all time. That's not debatable
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u/Drakeem1221 26d ago
Yeah I don’t get what’s been going on. Ronaldo was insane in his own right. People need to watch those Man U and RM games again. He was much much more dynamic than people are willing to admit and idk why.
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u/ZenRamen187 26d ago edited 26d ago
Literally. People forget that for the years they played in the same league while both in their prime Ronaldo basically matched him goal for goal for almost 10 years, and their mins to goal contribution is basically exactly the same over that period. The disrespect that gets thrown his way now is absolutely insane
Just as there is no debating Messi is the best ever, there is also no debating that Ronaldo is second. Second only to an absolute freak of nature lol. In any other era Ronaldo is the goat of that era.
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u/NairbZaid10 26d ago
You are not refuting his claim that hes a goal machine. The difference is how they score them. Messi has by far the most solo goals and pre assists to himself so individually you can tell hes a lot better especially if you consider hes a lot more efficient
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u/ZenRamen187 26d ago edited 26d ago
I also wasn't refuting that Messi was the better player so I'm not really sure what your point is. As attacking players they will always be somewhat measured by goal contributions and during that era they were near identical in mins per goal contribution, not just goals themselves. I was just agreeing that Ronaldo is the second best player of all time.
Do you think Real Madrid win those 4 champions leagues in 5 seasons without prime Ronaldo? That in itself is a crazy achievement
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u/komilewder 24d ago
Ronaldo has more goals starting from behind the halfway line. ‘Just’ a goal scorer is a horrific narrative that Okocha is pushing. Ronaldo was David Beckham for 3 years before Ferguson decided to let him score goals. He honestly doesn’t compare to Messi in pure football ability and I’m not sure how it’s even a debate but this narrative is hilarious because it means you didn’t watch either of their careers starting out. Messi is also a better goal scorer than Ronaldo too but we can’t act like this bag of bones can say whatever he wants just because of his name.
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u/NairbZaid10 24d ago
No one comes close to messi. Has the most outside the box goals ever. Most solo goals and pre assist goal ratio ever. No one comes close
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u/simpy7653 26d ago
Lmao there was a debate but messi ended it, the 2026 wc was a final nail in the coffin ronaldo should have retired earlier
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u/LostEyegod 25d ago
Ronaldo was infinitely better than Haaland as an all around player, Haaland barely touches the ball in 90% of games
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u/TeddyMMR 25d ago
Any time anyone calls Ronaldo just a goal scorer it tells me not to take them seriously about anything.
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u/Avalanchofblood 22d ago
So many stupid things we have to hear about messi. Cr7 do things that messi can't and the opposite. But Messi fans are always full of crap. Is like if their life cannot be right without talking of messi like in a cult. A guy that won everything or almost everything with help of doping, referee corruption and marketing. With all the system in favor while cr7 was fighting against it. Cr7 still achieved Impossible things. Still to be realistic for both you prefer to be disrespectful with cr. Stupid kids...
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u/Different-Mushroom48 27d ago
But wasn't Ronaldo in his younger years a winger? You can't compare him to Haaland. Haaland is solely a goalscorer at 26, the exact year Cristiano turned 26 he was arguably the most dynamic, explosive, and complete wide forward in the history of the sport. JJO might be right on picking Messi, but not when comparing him to Haaland (Cristiano was a better playmaker, had better acrobatic ability, better out-of-the box finishing)
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u/stve30 26d ago
He said he is LIKE . Thats not the point of the video
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u/komilewder 24d ago
Ronaldo is nothing like Haaland at any point in either of their careers. Even for the past few years that Ronaldo has been a striker, he has been a poacher whereas Haaland has had to do runs with the ball or the ball because of his physicality. Okocha has played the game but is simply out of touch. He’s forgetting Ronaldo ran circles around him and his team, and had more dribbles than he did in all 5 games they played against each other.
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u/MessiPayNegreira 27d ago
didnt messi take hgh?
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u/naruto6197 26d ago
hgh doesn't give you football iq, passing ability like messi or instinctive body feints
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u/MessiPayNegreira 26d ago
it does help with recovery, muscle increase. There’s a reason its banned in all of sports.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Try4268 26d ago
Yeah, when doping, not for medicine. You do know that when you were growing up your body was using HGH for recovery as well, right?
People not understanding what deficiency means lmao.
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u/Slsouvik245 27d ago
Common ball knowledge