How the 2022 World Cup has summed up the Messi-Ronaldo debate

First thing first, a single football tournament is not a decent basis for making broad generalisations about the sport. The debate over who the greatest player of all time is is even more polarising because of the lack of nuance it allows.

We aren't here to settle an argument, though. This is a metaphor for Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's complex and prolonged rivalry.

This was the first time both Messi and Ronaldo came into the World Cup with an international trophy to their name.

However, they are in distinct phases of their respective careers. Even though Ronaldo's petulant outbursts to Piers Morgan caused him to become a free agent about a week after the tournament began, Messi has made a comeback from a less-than-stellar 2021/22 season.

The Portuguese rival has definitively shown that he has a negative impact on the teams he is on, in contrast to Messi, who has disproved the notion that he can't exist outside of Barcelona. By August of last year, not even Manchester United fans who had spent the entire season defending him on the grounds that "he's the only one scoring so it can't be his fault" were willing to defend him.

Messi has turned his life around in Argentina thanks in large part to his willingness to embrace his nationality. Fans now bow down in his presence in a show of adoration reminiscent of that shown to Diego Maradona.

It's fair to say that the biggest difference between Maradona and the current Argentina squad is that they no longer need him to possess the ball at all times. Lionel Scaloni has constructed a team with Messi as the star player, but the team's success has become overly dependent on Messi's abilities.

And with that, we return to Ronaldo. Give him the ball near the goal area (ideally within 12 yards) and watch him score. He must be the focus of attention. For his own sanity, he must be the focus of everyone's attention.

Although Portugal failed to impress in their group-stage matches, the Selecao finally looked like a top-tier footballing nation after Ronaldo was benched in the round of 16 for his petty reaction to being replaced.

Against Morocco, they quickly lost steam, but that just set the stage for Ronaldo's redemption, for his "inevitability" to finally take hold. Due to his inability to deliver, Portugal was eventually knocked out. In the upcoming semi-final, Argentina will face Croatia.

In his later years as a player, Ronaldo's story has been one of winning at all costs, with the emphasis always being on scoring a goal. When the reasons to work together have vanished, all that's left is a polarising leader. Even if he isn't the one scoring goals, Messi has continued to be a unifying force for his teams. On the other hand, this is something that we've all known for a while now, right?

Messi is still going strong; he has a real chance to surpass Maradona as Argentina's all-time greatest player. Ronaldo's career is not only going downhill, but backward, and it's damaging his own legacy in the process. That was the story of the 2022 World Cup, and it was the story of their careers as a whole.