Ronaldo and Messi have distorted our perceptions of what is possible on a football field, making the extraordinary, ordinary. They have altered our idea of what constitutes an excellent goal-scoring season. Anything less than 50 goals a season could, in future, be construed as underwhelming.
“I don’t want to be pessimistic,” former Barcelona and Real Madrid forward Javier Saviola told Goal, “but it will be hard for anyone to reach the level of Ronaldo and Messi after they’re gone. I think that Leo, in particular, has done something ‘inhuman’. It’s very difficult to win the titles he won, score the goals that he scored, and play the way that he plays.
“But Leo and Cristiano, we will speak about them as the best for many years because of what they did for a decade, winning 11 Ballons d’Or.”
“Even if you look at players just from my lifetime, such as the Brazilian Ronaldo, he was the best player in the world at his peak, but he had so many injury problems that meant he was only at his greatest for a short period of time.
“Before Messi at Barcelona, there was Ronaldinho, another worldly talent. He could do things with the football that nobody else could even imagine But he had a short peak because he lost his focus. He enjoyed the good life. He had maybe four or five years at his best before he quickly declined.
“So, it’s a difficult to thing to stay at the top. Yet Ronaldo and Messi have been delivering for a decade or more, relentlessly. And the fact that they also did it concurrently for so long, while playing in the best league in football, for the two biggest teams in the world, that’s what it makes their era so unprecedented.
“They’ve not given anybody else has had a look in. There have been lots and lots of great players over the past decade who would have previously had a claim on being the best player in the world but they’ve not even been close. I don’t think anyone would dispute that. Nobody has been close to the level of Messi and Ronaldo.”