And even the position has changed a lot. From the bright young faces, both now covered the football world. The names have rounded up a decade at the top of the world. However, at the World Cup, all is still zero, no change.
That number starts with a personal performance. Neither side has scored in the knockout rounds. A very bad number if placed next to the number of goals they regularly scored in the season in the club shirt. Then the number 0 expands to zero, which is the success of the World Cup playground or the world cup in particular.
To say that the two did not contribute to the national team is too strict. Ronaldo has won the Euro Championship with Portugal. And Messi, with his tearful Argentine generation, has gone to three successive finals, including the 2014 World Cup. But of course the champion is worth another, and the gold trophy is still glorious. completely different.
Back to the first two matches of the 16th round. Yesterday, we had an article highlighting the collective factor in football, saying it "if we only look forward to Messi and Ronaldo, we may miss many other good things." Watching two matches, perhaps this sentence is also true more or less.
Both Messi and Ronaldo are captured very tightly, there is no gap for both. This makes them unable to shine as expected, or even play underpowered if compared to themselves.
However, Messi still left two tectonic phase, in which the first tectonic phase was lucky but anyway derived from his own efforts. And Ronaldo, who scored the most goals, even surpassed Uruguay (6 vs. 5), came from his personal endeavors and mostly out of the box, he even headed. in terms of human parameters, with 5 successes.
Speak to know that both of them have tried their best. But they can not help their squad to beat France and Uruguay.
Referring to the collective story, last night both teams were worth noting from No. 11: Angel Di Maria on the Argentine side and Bernardo Silva on the Portuguese side. Di Maria had an equalizer with a dangerous shot, and Silva had a "flaming fire" night. But...
Beside the goal was a Di Maria ... very dark in the left wing corridor, he went down the ball down the border and throw in while the Argentine map when the battle is not a striker. And Silva, he missed a chance to eat ... as many other times in this World Cup. And that's two pictures that detail the "supporters" portraits for Messi and Ronaldo this summer. Listening to names is great, but the reality on the pitch is different.
Argentina and Portugal are two age-old opposites. Bernardo Silva, Andre Silva and Gonçalo Guedes are all new twenties, and they are too inexperienced to follow Ronaldo.
As for Argentina, it's no different ... comedy. We say that they are very strong, to prove us, "Higuain, Dybala, Aguero," and when it comes to saying the three names ... nobody is in the starting lineup. Even at the end of the match, Higuain and Dybala were still unavailable.
Come here to see that if compared with groups such as Mbappe-Griezmann-Giroud or Cavani-Suarez, Ronaldo with Messi is playing with people less or less.
Recalling a bit about Argentina's success in the 2014 World Cup and Portugal in Euro 2016, the two teams used a rather pragmatic approach. Real defensive end with Mascherano on Argentina side and Pepe on Portugal side, then later on to bring the ball up to Messi or Ronaldo deciding to score goals.
Last night, Pepe made a mistake leading to the goal, although he has a good equalizer. And Mascherano, he can not keep up with Mbappe's pace and youth. That shows, time is not from anyone. 35 and 34, the old leaders were too old to shoulder heavy duties. Everything was so different.
So it is not good and the player is not better at all. What is the image of Messi and Ronaldo this year? Is loay to find the solution on the goods. Then heart or go hungry when looking at home. That psychology, how boring.
As a result, the two of them could not stay. Incidentally, this year, they both returned home one night. Hopefully this is not an omen for the end. Audience, World Cup still need you.
For four years, both Messi and Ronaldo have been "too" old to be able to roll out in the World Cup. But look at their persistence
