The World Cup is the grandest tournament in world football, but it is a real shame that the two giants of club football, Real Madrid and Barcelona, can’t participate in the competition that comes around every four years.
But, what if both Real Madrid and Barcelona were allowed to play in the World Cup? Would one of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi win the elusive Holy Grail of football with their respective club teams?
For the answers, YouTuber Rich Leigh decided to pit the two Spanish giants against the best national teams in the world in FIFA 17's Career Mode and the results came out to be totally unexpected.
The draws
In reality, Real Madrid often face flak for drawing weaker teams in the Champions League knockout stages, and a similar turn of events happened in FIFA 17 as well. Los Blancos were drawn in a group comprising Cameroon, the Netherlands and Al Hilal (representing Saudi Arabia). Messi’s Barcelona were up against Spain, Chile and South Africa — a testing group.
Group stages
As expected, Real Madrid cruised through their group with three wins from three matches, but the real shock was Barca’s group stage exit. The Blaugrana failed to win any of their three group matches, thereby bowing out of the World Cup in humiliating fashion.
Knockouts
While Ronaldo’s Real breezed through the group stage, Messi wasn’t yet out of the World Cup as Argentina also made it past their group. As fate would have it, both Real Madrid and Argentina made the quarter-finals where they met each other.
This time though, Messi’s Argentina got the better of Ronaldo’s Real Madrid as the Albiceleste progressed through to the semi-finals.
However, Ronaldo’s World Cup wasn’t to end with Real Madrid’s exit as his Portugal side also qualified for the semis. Portugal faced England in the semis, while Argentina squared off to Germany.
Argentina’s semi-final against Germany was a repeat of the 2014 World Cup final and like three years ago, Messi’s side failed to get past Germany yet again. Meanwhile, Ronaldo’s Portugal downed England 2–0 in the other semi-final.
In what was a pretty closely fought final between Portugal and Germany — as the 1–0 scoreline suggests — Ronaldo’s team came out on top. The 32-year-old might never have a chance to lift the World Cup, but he manages to win it with Portugal in FIFA 17, despite having entered the tournament playing for two different teams.
