Messi vs Ronaldo: Updated Edition (Luca Caioli)

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With amusing irony, Messi vs Ronaldo is hitting the shelves just as Cristiano Ronaldo’s second act at Manchester United is ending in an embarrassing fireball of blame-spreading and self-owning, his abilities having declined to the point where Fred outranks him for shot accuracy this season. Lionel Messi, meanwhile, has been becalmed in Ligue 1 for 18 months, with his many worshippers hoping against hope that he can pull one last big triumph out of the bag, either in Qatar or in the Champions League. Both men are very close to the end, giving this book a somewhat valedictory feel.

The two players both missing out on a World Cup win, unless either wins in 2022 is also noted and discussed. The amount of profligate spenders who’ve infiltrated the game (mainly Middle Eastern and Chinese actors) seems like a huge net negative on the sport. Not only have they bid up prices on assets to crazy levels but they also are not at all motivated to break even, so they’re skewing the very laissez-faire business to a race to the bottom. Seems like the era of homegrown talent is out and so many of these huge signings don’t pan out. The first bit of advice for reading this book comes early – the authors state that this is not intended to be a dual biography of the two legends but instead a thorough look at their careers from playing the game early in life through their rise to their professional teams by examining the business side of international soccer and how it affected them. There is in-depth information on the two clubs that both players spent the bulk of their careers, and it is no coincidence that they are two of the most famous clubs in European soccer – Real Madrid (Ronaldo) and FC Barcelona (Messi). Because of both the celebrity of the players and the name recognition of their clubs, Messi and Ronaldo’s rise in fame also helped bring a revolution in the business of international soccer. There’s also a very good analysis of how Messi’s final contract at Barcelona effectively broke the entire club, as its gargantuan wage terms tipped the numbers over into 110 per cent of the organisation’s revenue. When he eventually lands at PSG, they make an optimistic attempt to turn him into a fashion plate, adding Christian Dior as a partner and making Messi “trade his jean shorts for cashmere coats and tailored trousers”.Lastly, very curious to see how things evolve from here. With teams like Man City and PSG and others operating with a different economic framework and the Spanish clubs really struggling to figure out their new formula - how does the Champions League competition change? Should there be a super league? The country league structure has so many flaws, it seems. The fact that things are so dynamic and could change (even the fact that international competition has dimmed in prestige in the last couple decades) is both unsettling to me and very interesting - so much tradition yet so much fluidity. I bet the authors are absolutely rueing publishing this book in the spring of 2022, thinking that the story of these 2 GOATs was about to finish. Messi vs Ronaldo : One Rivalry, Two Goats, and the Era That Remade the World’s Game (2022) by Jonathan Clegg and Joshua Robinson follows on from the two author’s very good book ‘The Club’ on the Premier League and this time looks at the careers of Ronaldo and Messi. The World Cup final is here. For a sports fan this past month has been a dream. I struggle when baseball season ends and the NFL is primarily one day a week. This month, I have been watching the football of the rest of the world for the past month and bonding with my husband and son, who are fanatics, in the process. Even I know Messi and Ronaldo, how could I not, so I wanted to get this book read in time for the final game, which is starting as I write. I had been on Team Ronaldo for most of the month until his nation got eliminated. Usually I am on Team Ronaldo only because in his broken English he encouraged “another Goat” to stay out of retirement. That aside, my husband has always rooted for Brazil, so by default I would not root for Argentina, and that has kept me off of Team Messi. For today, I have joined Team Messi, only because he has said that he is done with international competitions after this World Cup, and it is always a moving moment when an athlete goes out on top.

No one has ever accused me of being a soccer fan which makes this book an unusual choice for me. It’s a great read that not only covers the rivalry between Messi and Ronaldo but paints the soccer world as a crazy soap opera where the only romance is between each player and himself. A nice fill-in-the-blanks deep dive for _the_ sporting rivalry that has dominated my football watching years. What I enjoyed most is that the authors pretty much avoided waxing lyrical about the greatness of these 2 players on the pitch, and focused solely on the business, media and corporate forces that shifted and emerged through the Messi-Ronaldo era. The book is in three sections, Two Geniuses, Greatest(s) of All Time and Twilight of the Gods. In the first the rise of the two players is chronicled. In the second their time in La Liga together is described. Finally in Twilight of the Gods the aging of the two masters and them leaving La Liga is covered. In this well-written account, you will learn about the men, but also things that shoot through the myths associated with them. I always figured Ronaldo arrogant and selfish, and he is, but he was also far more instrumental for Portugal in their 2016 European Championship. Even when he got subbed out after 20 mins due to injury, his leadership on the sideline was actually critical, as he amplified the coach’s directions (the manager having lost his voice). He was a real team leader, not just for his stellar play, but actually leading the team. Messi, while seen as less self-centered, can be just as arrogant and cutting. He is perhaps one of the best trash-talkers out there (a side he usually keeps contained, but did come out in the past World Cup against the Dutch). There seem to be some learnings around superstars/rivalries as part of a team vs individual (e.g. tennis) but I don’t know enough to compare these guys to Lebron or others to understand the meaningful differences in wealth generated, power vis a vis club owners or leagues, etc. vs. the NBA, NFL, tennis, etc.

Wall Street Journal reporters Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg offer a deeply reported account of the intertwined sagas and legacies of two of the greatest soccer players of all time--Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo--examining how their rivalry has grown from a personal competition to a multi-billion-dollar industry, paralleling the stunning rise, overwhelming excesses, and uncertain future of modern international soccer. The book’s overriding theme is how their career arcs personified the radical transformation of football from a mere sport into a formidable tool of global soft power, which means lots of material about the behind-the-scenes machinations that powered their careers. In the summer of 2008, as Real Madrid try to unsettle Ronaldo at United by planting stories in the press, an outraged Alex Ferguson tells him: “If I do that [cave in to their tactics], all my honour’s gone, everything’s gone for me, and I don’t care if you have to sit in the stands… I will not let you leave this year.” But at least it’s a worthwhile read. Written by a pair of Wall Street Journal reporters, Messi vs Ronaldo mercifully refrains from systematically going through their two careers season by season in a blur of goals and records. Instead, the emphasis is on the personal, drawing heavily on interviews with individuals who had ringside seats for both players’ rise to the top. The American perspectives of the authors are sometimes too noticeable – Walter Smith is referred to merely as “one of Ferguson’s assistant coaches from outside Glasgow”, Clive Tyldesley described as “an announcer” – but the writing is strong and detailed overall.

Thanks to my son’s knowledge of football history, I knew most of the football moments outlined in this book, think Brady vs Manning but the entire world is watching. The business side of sports always interests me. I have always thought that baseball should adopt European football’s transfer policy instead of trading away soon to be free agents at the deadline in return for peanuts. Clegg has outlined why this idea is not so simple, mainly because only a handful of teams can afford the best players available on transfer or loan. As American, he simplifies the business of sports on terms that Americans who primarily watch American sports would understand. For instance, Manchester City is the Dodgers and Manchester United is the Yankees and Liverpool is the Red Sox. He notes that if Ronaldo had ever signed with Manchester City, it would be akin to the Red Sox’ sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Those terms I can relate to.I regret not watching more club soccer in the last 15 years given that these two (particularly Messi) truly seem like all-time greats and I am sad I missed the beauty - esp of the glory years of Barca. Have been watching a lot of YouTube goals. Reading this book felt like a very good primer for someone like me - a person just getting into soccer and wanting to know more about it. I learned a great deal from it, and while I doubt that their army of fans would discover anything new, I would imagine this is one of the first times that all this information has been collected into one specific book. I could very well be wrong about that.