Lionel Messi v Cristiano Ronaldo: Who is the greatest this week?

Inside Spanish football’s never-ending quest for individual supremacy – this week, Messi and Ronaldo are finally good again (thank goodness, because this column really needed it).

GOALS

Messi: Having gone his opening two games of the Liga season without notching so much as a goal or an assist (for the first time in eight years) Messi finally found the net against Atletico Madrid - and it was worth waiting for. A neat one-two with Luis Suarez on the edge of the box set the Argentine through on Jan Oblak’s goal, finding the far corner of the net with a wonderful outside-of-the-right-foot finish. It’s just as well, because another goalless week would have given FIFA the legal right to melt down his Ballon d’Or trophy.

Ronaldo: All-of-a-sudden Ronaldo’s goals-to-games ratio looks much more like it. The underwear model-turned-football player now has five goals from his opening three club games this season, and will surely sleep better in his revolving, mirror bed after hitting all five against Espanyol on Saturday.

Advantage: Ronaldo

Lionel Messi celebrates his goal - AFP

ALL-ROUND PERFORMANCE

Messi: When Luis Enrique turned in Barcelona’s team sheet at the Vicente Calderon the match delegate must have done a double take. For the first time since the infamous defeat to Real Sociedad last year, Messi only made the bench - but he made the match’s telling contribution after coming on as a second-half substitute. He might not have trained all week - following the birth of his second son - but his introduction clicked Barca into sync. 30 minutes was enough for Messi to win a game all on his own.

Ronaldo: Somewhere, scrawled on a Good Will Hunting-style blackboard, is a formula. It explains how Ronaldo has managed to make himself the most effective player in world football. With every season he gets a year older, and yet his goals-to-games ratio only seems to get better, expending not a hint of energy unless it results in finding the net. Not even Matt Damon could work that one out. This was the archetypal Ronaldo performance, in which he did very little else other than score with pretty much every shot on goal he had.

Advantage: Messi

Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates a goal against Espanyol - Reuters

TEAM SUCCESS

Messi: Before the international break, Barcelona - last season’s treble winners - had somehow become a team reliant on late winners from Thomas Vermaelen (who is now, once again, injured). But against one of their main title rivals Enrique’s side picked up their standard and turned in their most measured display of the campaign so far. Not even a Fernando Torres goal was enough to dampen their performance.

Ronaldo: Rafa Benitez must’ve, at some point on Saturday evening, afforded himself a smug smirk. For all the previous concerns over how his stewardship would impact on Real Madrid’s inherent attacking instinct, Los Blancos have now scored 11 goals in their last two games. As Rafa might say, those are the facts - and against Espanyol, Real were worth their 6-0 win. With Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema all playing for only the second time this season, Benitez’s side were everything so many feared they wouldn’t be.

Advantage: Ronaldo

MEDIA

Messi: “United,” read the front page of Barcelona sports daily Sport on Sunday morning, which was probably a relief for those who feared Enrique’s dropping of Messi to the bench was about more than the birth of the Argentine’s second son. But there was no repeat of the row that followed the benching of Messi at the Anoeta last year, with player and coach showing the kind of united front that’s all too rare in Catalunya right now (that’s an independence joke, by the way). Messi didn’t so much throw the toys out the pram, as throw them in this time.

Ronaldo: Okay, so Ronaldo might have celebrated each of his five goals in the customary fashion - pointing to himself and posturing, just to remind us all who had actually scored - but the Portuguese was rather more selfless in his post-match reaction, dedicating his five goals to his team-mates. I bet they were delighted, although they probably would have preferred it had he shared out his haul on the pitch.

Advantage: Ronaldo

OFF THE PITCH

Messi: The Barcelona No. 10 dedicated his winning goal against Atletico Madrid to his newborn son, Mateo, pulling off the age-old thumb sucking celebration. It served a reminder that, while he might the greatest footballer of all time, he will spend the next few months changing nappies through the night and finding vomit on pretty much every item of clothing he owns.

Ronaldo: There’s a theory that Ronaldo’s commercial contracts require him to plug an endorsed product for every goal that he scores. And so with five goals scored against Espanyol, the walking billboard got busy on social media, plugging headphones, menswear, sunglasses, sportswear and of course, his new branded aftershave. Following his Instagram is like entering a Gadget Show competition.

 

Advantage: Messi

FINAL SCORE: Lionel Messi 2-3 Cristiano Ronaldo

So for the next seven days Ronaldo is once again the greatest footballer on earth – and with both players finally now off the mark for the mark the greatest rivalry in modern sport has truly resumed! Rejoice!