This is Jack from tofluency.com,

and today, Rodrigo and I are going to have a debate.

- A debate? - Yeah.

We are going to talk about, and we're going to debate

who is better out of Messi and Ronaldo.

And this is an opportunity for you

to listen to natural English,

and I will leave all the phrases that we use

in the description, too,

but first, Rodrigo is one of my good friends

here in Nashville, and he is on the soccer team, too,

so we talk soccer a lot, we play together,

and we often talk about Ronaldo versus Messi.

- I think anybody who enjoys soccer has this conversation.

At least for our generation,

they're the natural, who's one, who's number two?

- Yeah.

- I'm obviously, as we've talked about ofen,

a big Ronaldo fan, and I think Messi's great,

and he's been really good,

but I don't think he overcomes Ronaldo.

- Yeah, whereas I'm a big Ronaldo fan,

but I see Messi as a level above.

- I wonder, though, oftentimes most people,

I think, think that, and I think it's also

has a lot to do with Ronaldo's personality.

- That is one thing, so--

- Which I don't think should be taken into account.

- I agree.

I agree, I think 'cause people perceive Ronaldo

to be quite single-minded,

quite selfish on the pitch at times,

whereas Messi is more reserved.

He's seen more as a team player, I feel.

- I think he just doesn't have very much personality.

- No.

- Like Ronaldo has personality,

he wears his emotions on his sleeve.

He's happy, everybody knows it.

He's sad or angry, everybody knows it as well.

And I don't know, I guess personally enjoy that.

I wanna feel that energy or that excitement.

- Yeah, he does bring that.

- For sure. - Yeah.

- And I think the other thing is

what do you do outside of the club matters a lot

because especially when you play at these super clubs,

you're surrounded by so much talent,

and when you get into that conversation

of who's the greatest of all time,

or who's the greatest of our generation, they're that good,

if you're gonna have them in that conversation,

they really need to raise the level of play around them,

and be able to shine in less than ideal circumstances.

- So do you place Ronaldo and Messi

above players such as Zidane?

- It's a little challenging because Zidane,

I only watched him a little bit in the '98 World Cup,

which is kind of on the backend of his career,

and I was eight years old,

and so it wasn't like I had a ton of exposure to him.

But I would say that I would,

maybe a better comparison for me is Beckham.

'Cause I saw him play live one time

when he was still with Real Madrid,

and I would say, yeah, I would raise them above that

because I think they've had a greater influence on the game,

and of course, I'm biased.

I'm way more familiar with them.

- Yeah, and their stats are just

out of this world. - Insane.

- You can't compare their stats to any other player

'cause it's just head and shoulders above

what others have done recently.

So, especially since,

'cause Ronaldo, when he first came to England,

he was very flashy.

- Yes.

- And people talked about how he had no end product.

He couldn't provide that final cross,

he couldn't score a goal.

And then, there's an interview with Gary Neville,

do you know Gary Neville?

- Yep.

- And he talked about,

he just came back over the summer,

and he was a completely different player.

He was an animal, and that's when he started

to just score all the time and provide goals.

- I think that's one of my favorite things about Ronaldo

and why I really think it puts him above Messi is

Ronaldo has shown that he can change

and adapt his style of play to what's needed

or expected on him in different teams

and in different stages of his career.

To talk about Ronaldo, he used to be the speed guy,

and now he's become the clinical finisher,

now that he's lost some of that speed.

And we've seen him have incredible careers

in Portugal, England, Spain, and even now in Italy.

That's really impressive,

and not to mention everything he's done with Portugal,

and at the national level,

I think that's where you even have a bigger separation

because I think there are less big-name players

on the Portuguese soccer team

than there are on the Argentinian soccer team,

and yet, the difference of quality

and what they mean to those teams is completely different.

- Whereas I see the,

'cause Ronaldo has done it at the international level.

He won the European championships.

He did come off injured early on in that game, but--

- But that is actually I think one of his greatest,

arguably one of the most important things.

If you saw him that game,

he was the most passionate player on the field,

even though he was on the bench.

And that was incredible.

- Yup.

I know what you mean, he was cheering the team on.

He was passionate behind them.

- His influence was still felt on the game.

- But that team, that Portuguese team was quite negative,

and they built a very solid team structure

where Ronaldo put on the finishing touches,

whereas I feel with Messi and Argentina,

it's just been a mess over the last six, seven years,

where they try and put in all these players

without any type of strategy in place.

- Agreed wholeheartedly,

but then, how many times have you heard these articles

or things where he made this, Ronaldo has this new coach,

I forgot his name right now,

Sarri I think, right? - Yeah.

- Sarri went and talked to Ronaldo ahead of time

to quote, unquote get signed off on the move, and why?

Because Ronaldo's not just gonna sit by

and let things happen around him.

He's gonna be very aggressive and being like,

no, if I'm on this team, we're going to do well,

and so it's almost like Sarri had to make sure

he had buy-in from Ronaldo 'cause if Ronaldo had agreed

to whatever Sarri was doing,

the rest of the team's gonna follow.

You never hear about this from Messi.

The chaos that's happened on the Argentinian national team,

could you envision that being the case if Ronaldo was there?

There's no way.

- Oh, I think it would be.

- He would just say, screw the coach,

and just say, all right, you guys listen to me.

This is how we're playing.

And people would listen!

And they do what he says!

- I feel that's a hypothetical there.

You couldn't ever test.

I know I've seen this so many times over the years

with Argentina, where they don't have any strategy.

They'll just put out their three players up front,

and it's just chaos.

It seems like they're always playing scared, that team.

From being from South America,

you know the history with Argentina.

- I mean, it is crazy.

I mean, they've always been one of the giants there,

but a very underperforming giant.

- All right, so let's just talk about them

as individual players,

and we look at different parts of the game

and say which one is better.

- Okay.

- So I'm gonna start with an easy one for Ronaldo.

Heading.

- Oh, well.

(both laugh)

When you've got, what, six to eight inches of height,

yeah, you better win that one.

- He is one the best headers of the ball I've seen.

- Clinical.

- He is incredible.

Although there is a clip

of Real Madrid and Barcelona playing,

and Messi out-jumping Ronaldo.

Everyone likes to look at that.

- [Announcer] Messi.

- Okay, so heading without a doubt.

This is an interesting one, finishing.

- I would probably...

Ooh, that is a tough one.

- Who would you trust with a one-on-one

with the goalkeeper more?

'Cause to me, that's easy.

- Yeah, I would probably say Messi.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I don't know if I'd say it's easy,

but I would say, yeah, I would default to Messi,

saying being the better finisher.

- Free kicks?

- I don't think either of them

are particularly great at that.

- Messi last season.

His stats were unreal.

- But I mean, that was like an aberration a little bit,

wouldn't you agree?

- Well, it might be the new normal.

You never know. - Fair enough.

- I'd say penalties, Ronaldo.

Messi has this habit of missing them.

- For the national team in big moments.

- Well, we'll have to look at that.

He misses a lot of penalties

for Barcelona in the regular season.

- A lot of the reasons they've been knocked out

has been his inability to finish penalties

when they've been needed to at international competitions,

but that's a different-- - Mhm, yup.

- But yeah, so penalties, Ronaldo's better, yeah.

- I don't like the term natural ability,

but in terms of--

- Well, I think natural ability, it's Messi.

- Yeah.

Well, in terms of who has the most amount of grace

and flair and skill when they're running with the ball.

- Oh, it's Ronaldo, I think.

- Really?

- I think so.

- Oh, that's where I really disagree.

- Because I think Ronaldo, I don't know.

I think, well, it's running with the ball.

In confined spaces, Messi looks better 'cause he's smaller.

He can maneuver, but if you're talking

running with the ball, onto the ball,

I feel like Ronaldo looks way smoother.

- Well, just-- - He's got the size,

that stride.

- Ronaldo has that strength and power when he runs,

and you don't want him running directly at you,

whereas Messi, I mean, it's very rare

that you'll see a Ronaldo goal

where he takes on six players.

- Right.

- He'll take on one and smash it in the corner,

whereas Messi, there are so many goals,

where he's like dink, dink, dink, dink, dink,

megs. - Correct.

Right, but that's what I would just say is differing,

and that's maybe just how you're defining it is

running with the ball is very different

than dribbling in confined spaces,

which is Messi's, one of his best strengths probably.

- Okay, yeah, definitely.

- But if you think somebody running onto the ball,

that never happens for Messi almost.