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Football pundit Gary Neville has given his opinion on who he thinks is the greatest player of all time between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
Speaking on Sky Sports ahead of the Premier League fixture between Everton and Burnley, Gary Neville shared his reasoning as to why he thinks Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo is greater than PSG's Lionel Messi. He explained:
"Look, there's no doubt that Messi's scored an obscene amount of goals. He's a ridiculous player and its a little bit of a hypothetical question. But Ronaldo, the two big differences for me, or three big differences... Apart from the wrong-footed goals, the headers which Ronaldo's scored four or five times more. Ronaldo's scored probably I think 30 or 40 per cent more with his wrong foot and he's scored more penalties. So it just took me to a point whereby he was more complete in terms of the most important part of the game."
Gary Neville was teammates with Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United for six years, which may have swayed his decision to choose the Portuguese superstar over Lionel Messi in this debate.
Both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are widely considered to be the top two players of all time, with many people in and around football having conflicting views on who deserves to be called the greatest player of all time.
Gary Neville believes Cristiano Ronaldo edges out Lionel Messi because of his international record
Cristiano Ronaldo became the all-time men's international goalscorer with Portugal over the recent international break. He broke Iranian Ali Daei's record of 109 goals. Gary Neville believes the Manchester United man's record for his country puts him above Lionel Messi in the debate, despite their other accolades being very similar.
He explained:
"The last part which I think is the most important thing, which I think is the thing that tips it over the edge even more is that international record, of the most international goals ever. The fact that he's won five Champions Leagues with teams that aren't as good as Messi's team. "
"The Ballon d'Ors are very similar, Messi's won more league titles with that Barcelona team, but I just feel that the international goals record and the Champions Leagues, aligned with the variety of goals that he scores, even though they're very similar, takes me to think that he is the greatest football player of all time."
