Ronaldo’s tantrum in stark contrast to Messi’s graceful exit

 There is no correct way to end a football career, just an understanding that retirement can be tough and a large part of it will be taken up either criticising your successors or endorsing crisps. Just as they have for their entire careers, the game’s greatest modern rivals Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have travelled differently towards the end of the road.

Messi could not complete his Argentina run with a second World Cup victory last summer, despite what you would call a valiant effort from his team-mates, if it hadn’t involved quite so much flagrant cheating. On Tuesday night Argentina devoted a friendly with the footballing superpower of Benin to honouring Messi, who has represented his country for 21 years. The game was given a subtitle: “The Night That No One Wants to End”, seemingly taken literally when kick-off was delayed by 31 minutes. It was a predictably emotional night in Buenos Aires.

Messi shed tears on the team bus en route to the game, in the warm-up, during the national anthem, during the game and afterwards. Beating Benin 3-0 will do that to a man. Messi’s family was in attendance with his mother and wife in the stands and his three sons stood beside their father for the pre-match ceremony. As he so often has, Messi delivered exactly what was expected of him, making two goals and scoring a penalty. Who could begrudge him a happy farewell? We can think of one candidate.

Ronaldo is enjoying a less sentimental winding down of his international career, seemingly taking Dylan Thomas’s advice to “rage, rage against the dying of the light” literally. The 41-year-old walked out on Portugal’s training camp last week after a frustrated reaction to being an unused substitute for their Nations League game against Denmark.

Portugal manager Jorge Jesus had said before the match that Ronaldo must accept being benched and, would you believe it, Ronaldo had something to say back to his manager on that topic. It ran to 2,000 words. “This is the truth on what has happened with Jorge Jesus,” said Ronaldo in a statement released to Portuguese outlet A Bola.

In it Ronaldo accused Jesus of breaking a promise to play him for half an hour against Denmark, alleged that he had been consulted by the Portuguese FA to give his royal assent for Jesus’s appointment to begin with, as well as copy approval for a statement Jesus was going to deliver last week. Ronaldo compared himself to “Pele or Maradona” (notably omitting another Argentine), said he “gives the most autographs, takes the most selfies and shows the most affection to the fans”, and that he wanted to be punished, but not too harshly.

“The consequence of this act of mine must be assessed and punished by the Portuguese Football Federation,” he said. “I understand that the punishment should have no mitigating factors. I am not just any player; I am team captain, and that constitutes an aggravating factor.” Ronaldo then suggested that this was not the end of his international career, although you sense we are approaching the time when that decision is finally taken out of his hands.

It is all a remarkable contrast to the Messi love-in for two international careers which have taken wildly divergent paths. Ten years ago, with both already veterans of their team, it felt as if Ronaldo finally had a case for the stronger overall career when he won Euro 2016. At that point Messi’s Argentina experience had been characterised by disappointment, near misses and even a retirement after another crushing defeat in the Copa América final in the same year Portugal became European champions.

A national campaign convinced him to return and his country would finally win the Copa America in 2021, ending 28 years without a trophy. The World Cup followed in 2022, then another Copa América in 2024 and once again it felt as if the forever war between Messi and Ronaldo finally had a decisive winner.

History probably will not remember how either wound down in their final years on the pitch. Any forthcoming documentaries will not be devoting much of their run-time to Ronaldo’s adventures in Saudi Arabia, nor Messi’s in Miami. Yet there is something fitting about their conduct and the image each has projected in the past few days. Messi as beatific, largely contained, but holding great emotional weight. Ronaldo pouting, furious and unashamedly putting himself first.

Who knows how long his story will continue to run, or where both players go next in the time that remains for them as professional footballers. But we can certainly guess which of the two is more likely to appear soon on the YouTube channel of Piers Morgan.