It was a script that would never sell in Hollywood, purely because it was too cheesy, too perfect, and too hard to believe. On Sunday, the whole world watched as the genius that is Lionel Messi scored his 500th goal for Barcelona in the Clásico.
The majority of his goals have been spectacular, unique, crafted, but he saved something extra special to reach this incredible milestone. The events have been well-documented and talked about disbelievingly around the world. The winning goal, against Real Madrid at Santiago Bernabeu, with the final kick of the game; even football needs an element of realism.
But the sub-stories proved equally entertaining, and the goal may prove to be one of the most defining strikes of a generation. For the best part of the last decade Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have gone head-to-head in the battle to be considered the very best. They have almost become friends through familiarity as they join each other annually on stage for the prestigious Ballon d'Or award.
It is their rivalry, however, that has played a key part in their respective drive and motivation. Both are significantly different, but both are also brilliant, and both have arguments to why they should be considered the best. Both know they must rise above the other to achieve the ultimate accolades - one is the other’s greatest rival.
Former Barcelona striker Thierry Henry understands the culture and environment that surrounds the domestic game that the pair currently compete in. The intensity, the pressure and the demands. A television pundit for the latest instalment of El Clásico, Henry studied the reaction of Ronaldo as Messi scored his last-minute winner.
Ronaldo cut a distraught figure. His image momentarily forgotten despite being in the knowledge that the cameras are never far away from him both on and off the field. His team had just lost a key match in the La Liga title race, to their biggest rivals, in the cruellest of ways. His reaction was not unexpected in such a situation, but Henry saw more in it, and succinctly summarised it from a different angle.
This was not just a defeat for Real Madrid, but a defeat for brand CR7. Ronaldo had watched his professional nemesis snatch worldwide headlines away from him at his own stadium and in front of his own fans. If the roles had been reversed, imagine the choreographed celebration that Ronaldo would have had prepared.
Like his iconic UEFA Champions League final shirt-off pose in 2014, if he had scored the last-minute winner, his face, his pose, his celebration would have been on the back page of every newspaper on every news stand across the world the following morning. Metaphorical shares in CR7 would have soared.
Instead, it was Messi that would adorn the world's press. It was his shirt off, hold aloft, iconic celebration that would trend on social media at a million mentions a minute. Ronaldo was the forgotten man in a moment in which he was in a position to influence.
His outpouring of frustration was not just for his team, but for his brand, his image, and how his biggest rival had edged above him in social and sporting standing for at least a week. But it was also on his own turf, at the stadium where he is idolised, at the scene of some of his greatest triumphs.
Of course, Ronaldo and the CR7 brand will recover from this latest setback, but as his playing career edges into its final few years the importance of establishing his commercial value becomes all the more important. Ronaldo is a born winner, that has never been in doubt, and his dedication to his profession has been rewarded handsomely.
He has made sacrifices along the way, but his determination to be the best has only fuelled his rivalry with Messi, and it is the difference in the two figures that makes the battle for supremacy all the more intriguing.
Ronaldo, like his CR7 brand, is largely manufactured. He has the natural ability, but he has had to work from day one on his physical perfection in order to bring the best out of the talent that he was born with.
His pace, his strength, his leap, are all results of his endless dedication. His talent and attitude alone would have ensured a playing career at the top level, but he has continued to work to gain that extra one or two percent needed to move that little bit further up the ladder of competition.
There is no comparison to Lionel Messi, however. The Argentinian doesn't look the obvious athlete that you would expect the best footballer in the world to be. But Messi was more of a creation than the result of a developed sporting figure. His strength is his talent. His incredible ability to dribble with the ball, to read the game two or three steps ahead of defenders, to implement and action efforts on goal quicker than it takes anyone else to mentally process such a run of events.
Messi will never match Ronaldo in physical appearance. Ronaldo will never be able to dribble with the same low centre of gravity that has resulted in so many of Messi's most memorable moments. They are different animals, but equally rare, and equally beautiful in what they bring to the game. It is the ultimate rivalry that we are blessed to witness.
The arguments will always remain about which one is actually the best, their differences making it impossible to arrive at a definitive answer, and it is the continued debate that only heightens their combined status in the game.
But the moment belongs to Lionel Messi for his latest contribution to this unique rivalry. His celebration was an iconic moment that will live forever on the walls of the Camp Nou. Painfully for Cristiano, it was Ronaldo-esque. It was agitating, instigating, and the action of a lone man standing without fear in a cauldron of hate. In fact, Ronaldo would have loved it, if it hadn't directly hurt him so much.
