Marcus Rashford was unable to give a definitive answer when asked to pick between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the debate over the game\u2019s greatest. Put on the spot by ESPN, he opted for balance rather than a verdict. “I think it\u2019s Messi and Ronaldo,” Rashford said with an uneasy smile creeping across his lips. “It\u2019s difficult.” <\/p>\n
In the same quick-fire sequence the England international praised both men\u2019s strengths. Ronaldo earned the status of “best finisher of all time” while Messi was deemed to be the “best playmaker.” Rashford was clear that Messi remains “the greatest La Liga player of all time,” but he also refused to overlook Ronaldo when the discussion expanded beyond Spain\u2019s top flight.<\/p>\n
Rashford has previously described Ronaldo as an influence on his early development at Manchester United, recalling the Portuguese forward\u2019s work ethic and ambition. “When Cristiano Ronaldo came to United, he was the one who everyone looked up to,” the boyhood Red Devils fan revealed shortly after breaking into the first team. “The thing that impressed me the most was the fact he was only young when he came into the side and he wanted to be the best player in the side. He worked hard every single day, you saw him in the gym every single day and the results came on the pitch. He openly wanted to be the best player in the world .<\/p>\n
“You have to have an approach like that\u2014all the best players in the world do. It\u2019s not arrogance or anything like that, it\u2019s the mindset you need to achieve things.” <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no suggestion that a member of Barcelona \u2019s media department were looming menacingly behind the camera during Rashford\u2019s interview. Still, ex-Blaugrana midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng has spoken about internal pressure at Barcelona. He told Rio Ferdinand\u2019s podcast back in 2023: “I remember that when I arrived in Barcelona they immediately asked me who the best player in the world was. I had to say it was Lionel Messi, I lied. It was one of the biggest lies of my life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rashford refused to pick between Messi and Ronaldo, calling one a playmaker and the other a finisher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,1083,172],"tags":[1215,452,1296],"class_list":["post-4863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-man-utd","category-epl","tag-controversy","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-messi-ronaldo-debate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}