Football news: Lionel Messi voted world’s best ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo

Barcelona and Argentina superstar Lionel Messi has been voted as the world’s best player ahead of Real Madrid and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, in a poll conducted among the twenty coaches of the Brasilerao Serie A league.

Pombo, owned by news agency Globesporte, conducted a poll among the 20 coaches in the league as to which of the two football superstars they would rather have on the team. The result of the poll revealed that most of the managers chose Messi over Ronaldo if given the chance. The Portuguese football star only managed to get only five votes in the poll, with Messi getting fourteen votes. Only one manager, Sport Recife’s Paulo Roberto Falcao was unable to decide which of the two superstars he would rather have on his team.

Messi and Ronaldo are considered two of the greatest players of their generation. They have broken and set innumerable records in the careers and became inspirations to their respective teams to major triumphs.

Messi has come through Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy and has been considered by some to be the greatest player of all time, ranking among the game’s legends like Pele and Diego Maradona. He has won the Ballon D’Or four times, and the European Golden Boot award three times. Still only 28, he has already won the La Liga seven times with Barcelona, and the UEFA Champions League four times. He also has three Copa del Rey trophies and three UEFA Super Cups to his credit, along with two Club World Cup trophies. He is also La Liga’s all-time leading goal scorer with a whopping 289 goals.

Ronaldo, meanwhile, rose to fame at Manchester United, where he won three Premier League titles and the UEFA Champions League in 2008 along with a FIFA Ballon D’Or award. He then moved to Real Madrid for a then-world record £80 million pounds (AU $169 million). He has since won the La Liga and the UEFA Champions League with Real, and added two more Ballon D’Or awards to his name. Only recently he became the club’s all-time goal scorer, scoring 324 goals in just 309 games for the club.

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