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Manchester City’s IIkay Gundogan left out both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi from his list of the 3 best players in the world right now.
Lionel Messi won the 2021 Ballon d’Or but has had an indifferent start to his PSG career. He has scored five goals in the UCL group stages thus far but has only one to his name in 11 Ligue 1 appearances thus far.
Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 14 times in 21 appearances for Manchester United this term but his team is nowhere near where it was expected to be at the start of the season. Manchester United is languishing at 7th in the EPL and have a range of issues to deal with, including their long-term managerial future.
Regardless, IIkay Gundogan perhaps rightly believes that neither of the two footballing greats are among the top-3 in the world currently. Instead, he chose Mohammed Salah, Robert Lewandowski and Karim Benzema as his three best players. The three players have been in exemplary form for their respective teams.
Bayern’s Lewandowski has a whopping 31 goals in 26 appearances while Mohammed Salah has 23 goals in 26 Liverpool appearances thus far. Benzema on the other hand, has continued his role as the prime goalscorer for Real Madrid this term and has already scored 23 times this season.
Has the Lionel Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo era finally come to an end?
The fact that IIkay Gundogan did not include Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi in his top-3 is no coincidence. The two stars have shown clear signs of slowing down in recent years. Cristiano Ronaldo last won the Ballon d’Or in 2017 and was left out of the top-3 for the first time since 2008.
Meanwhile, Lionel Messi's domestic performances at PSG have been under constant scrutiny. At Barcelona, Lionel Messi was the main man for years. At the French club, he has had to share the limelight with Neymar and Kylian Mbappe with the latter emerging as their best player this term.
While Lionel Messi has plenty of time this term to improve his individual numbers, he might find it impossible to contend for individual awards next year if PSG do not come close to winning the Champions League. Cristiano Ronaldo, on the other hand, might have had a good chance of competing if only his team had been performing up to its potential.
Cristiano Ronaldo has managed to register impressive numbers despite being almost 37 years old. However, the Ballon d’Or especially in recent years, has also depended upon the trophies won by the individual players. With Cristiano Ronaldo not looking likely to win even one with Manchester United this term, both the football legends find themselves in a similar situation.
While both players are more than capable of sparking up a bit of an individual revival considering they are the two best club footballers of all time, they are not among the best-3 players in the world as of now.
