It is an age-old debate that has generated plenty of opinion over the years and led to the exasperated question: "Why can't we just enjoy both of them?"
Yet for many football fans, their preference for Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi has identified their own fandom, how they view and enjoy the game. Gary Lineker is among those who have insisted that there is no comparison to be had between the two.
Ronaldo and Messi have shared a remarkable sporting rivalry for more than a decade. They won 12 of 13 successive Ballon d’Or titles between them, with Messi edging out Ronaldo with seven individual honours compared to the Portuguese superstar’s five gongs (Luka Modric, in 2018, was the only player to break the sequence).
Conversely, Ronaldo leads Messi in Champions League titles won with his five crowns eclipsing Messi’s three in Europe’s premier club competition (the Argentine also featured in Barca’s 2006 success, but not in the latter stages of the competition). Messi has won more league titles but Ronaldo – who is two years his elder – has scored more goals at both club and international level.
While Ronaldo has a superior goal tally, Lineker has insisted this should not be how both players are judged. The Portuguese superstar may be the best goal-scorer of all time, but Messi has many more strings to his bow.
"He (Messi) is just phenomenal," Lineker told talkSPORT in 2019. "He's 31 now (Messi is now aged 35) and he's still going strong. He plays the game in a way the rest of us are not familiar with. I watch a lot of football, and people pine on this whole Messi vs Ronaldo debate; there's no comparison for me."
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Lineker added: "Messi is on a different level to everybody else, it's as simple as that. People say to me what about Ronaldo's goalscoring record and so forth?
"But I say to them have you seen Messi pass a football? Have you seen him dribble towards goal?"
Of course, not everyone is in agreement. Sir Alex Ferguson – who signed Ronaldo for Manchester United in 2003 and coached him for six years, overseeing his development into a phenomenon – argued that the two were on their own level.
“Messi and Ronaldo’s consistency is something else,” Ferguson told an interview with Sky Sports several years ago. “Their balance, their excellence on the ball, their courage, they are never dented by a tackle – they just get up and want the ball again.
“Look at the goals they have scored, the matches they have won, the medals they have won. Every other player would agree that those two players are above everyone else.
“They never miss games either. They play all the time. That is a huge value.”
Asked if he had to choose one over the other, Ferguson laughed and replied: “Ronaldo is my boy!”
