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#3 Lionel Messi and Ronaldo
There has to be a void in both players right now, not emotional or psychological, but a space created by not having to compete with the only player on a similar level to you on a weekly basis.
For nine seasons in La Liga, Messi has performed extraordinary feats, only to see them eclipsed by Ronaldo sometimes in a matter of hours and vice versa. Both players have set yardsticks, almost unspokenly daring the other to achieve or surpass it.
It was almost comical the way in which both players set about raising the bar in their competition with one another and such was their otherworldly brilliance that every other player in the world left them in their personal game of deciding the world's best.
Ronaldo set a record of scoring against all La Liga teams in a single season, Messi achieved the same feat the next season and added an extra touch by doing so in consecutive matches.
Ronaldo became the first player ever to reach the 40 league goal mark in 2011, a season later, Messi did the same and added an extra 10 goals for good measure. Messi was the first of the pair to score 50 Champions League goals and broke Raul's previous record first; Ronaldo beat him to 100. If Messi scores a brace, you can expect Ronaldo to score a hat-trick when Real Madrid lines up.
Each of the last 10 Ballon d'Ors have been shared equally between them, each of the last 8 Champions League Golden Boots has been won by at least one of them. Ronaldo became the first ever player to win the European Golden Shoe four times in 2015, Messi equalled that two years later and set a new record of five for himself at the end of the recently concluded season. They each hold the record of having appeared in the most FIFPRO World XIs with 10 appearances between 2007 and 2017.
Ronaldo's departure from La Liga will leave Messi playing god among mortals as everybody else in the league is substantially beneath his level and the individual awards are almost guaranteed to be won without breaking a sweat. The same can be said about Ronaldo in the Serie A.
Both players have admitted that their competition drives each other to strive to be better and being in direct competition with one another helped forge the greatest sporting rivalry in history.
Both players were an inseparable entity for nine seasons as Ronaldo was the Yin to Messi's Yang, a symphony whose movement has been halted, and both players will undoubtedly be the worse off for it.
