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Football pundit Jamie Carragher has given his opinion on who he thinks is the better player between Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo and PSG's Lionel Messi.
Speaking on Sky Sports ahead of the Premier League clash between Everton and Burnley, Carragher, along with fellow pundit Gary Neville, were asked who they'd pick between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to come off their bench.
Former Manchester United defender Neville said he thinks Cristiano Ronaldo is the greatest player of all time because of the variety of goals he scores. But Carragher was quick to offer a rebuttal, siding with Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi as the better player. He explained:
"No one's not a huge fan of Ronaldo or Messi. Ronaldo's not the greatest player of all-time. I'm going to say that it's his mate here, And the reason I say this is - you're talking about the difference of type of goals, you score different goals. It doesn't matter how the ball goes in the net. It doesn't matter if someone does a header or someone does a free-kick. It doesn't matter."
"Messi's got a better goal record than Ronaldo. Messi is also a playmaker. Messi can run a game; Ronaldo can't do that. Again, not a criticism. But there's no way in the world he's the greatest player of all time. You talk about who'd you want coming off the bench? Messi's scored double the amount of goals coming from the bench than Ronaldo's ever scored."
"So that's just a ridiculous thing that you've just said in terms of 'who would I want coming off the bench?' Because he can score different types of goals. It doesn't matter, even if Messi scores them all with his left foot. It's who has got more chance of scoring from the bench and the stats prove that Messi coming from the bench scores more goals than Ronaldo."
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are widely thought to be the two greatest players of all time.
"So I mean two absolutely, as I said, wonderful players" - Carragher on Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi
Carragher then went on to explain the different qualities that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi possess, and explained why he would pick Lionel Messi over the Portuguese superstar:
"So I mean two absolutely, as I said, wonderful players. But, what Ronaldo does is, and all the attributes you've mentioned in terms of heading, striking free-kicks and all that, I totally agree with, in terms of a complete player and doing things maybe Messi couldn't in terms of the weak foot or in the air. But Messi as a player can take you to a place where you can't actually believe what you're seeing."
"What Ronaldo does, is he does things that other players can do. So you see someone score a great header, you've seen that before; running, free-kicks, all those things. Messi can do things that we've never seen before and can also, like I said, the assists and running a game from that position. And yes, its close and there's always that big debate, but in terms of the goal scoring, that is not right."
