When the opening bell of international football chimes this week, the sport would mourn the passing from the field of two immortals. The planet officially steps into the post-Lionel Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo era. When the national anthem blasts, nostalgia would crawl in, memories would gush forth, tears would be shed, and the men in No 7 and No 10 would look different.
For much of their century, Messi and Ronaldo embodied two opposing spectrums of the sport’s fascination to characterise its lead act. In real life they could be even similar, both were bestowed with virtuosic qualities although manifested differently, both had a spiritual devotion for the sport, an obsession that was not bordering on madness, but madness itself, and equals locked in a perpetual battle for greatness. Debates and arguments could rage on forever and not produce a single definitive conclusion on who the first among the equal, was. It doesn’t matter, and perhaps stems from the man’s instinct to fight. They can’t take up arms. So they pick footballers, place them in enemy camps and combat each other in an imagined realm. Both of them could be enjoyed wholesomely—preferences are utterly subjective, depending on taste, sensibility and loyalties.
But like a script penned by a footballing god with a wicked sense for the dramatic, even their farewells could not have been more different. Messi timed his exit just around the right time, when he felt the light that ignited him would soon extinguish. He is 39, had lost a World Cup final that he almost single-handedly carried his team to, he lost his father, a pillar of his life, and he decided it was the ideal time to fold up his shirt after a tearful goodbye game against Benin. He left with peace.
Unless the Portugal Football Federation hastily arranges a token testimonial game, which some of the country’s media speculate it would, Ronaldo would leave with lingering bitterness, after a fine and 30-day suspension after his public fallout with coach Jorge Jesus. Maybe, the climaxes of both Messi and Ronaldo were written even before they became the greatest rivals in modern football. That Messi would fade sweetly into the night, and Ronaldo fitfully.
It was a fate Ronaldo inflicted upon himself. He lived resisting the bleeding reality for the best half of this decade. He fought with managers, of both the club and country, blind to the obvious fading of his powers. He can score goals, which he would even after he turns 70, but he didn’t see how football has changed around him and there was no place for him. There were signs, if he had rewatched his game after removing the spectacles of delusion. The 2020 Euro was perhaps the ripe time. He scored five goals and topped the charts, but Portugal crashed out in the round-of-16 clash.
No teammate of his said this openly, but he was an obstacle for a vibrantly young and athletic team. When the 2022 World Cup winked in, the whole world except Ronaldo knew his prowess had significantly waned. He raged on, despite a horrendous missed-penalty against Slovenia in Euro 2024. The 2026 World Cup campaign had only one clear path—the road to perdition. He made a parody of himself; he had lost his explosive pace long ago, he was struggling to even run.
His mind could read and plot the moves, but his body revolted. He couldn’t accept his mortality—Messi did. That in a sense is their career in a nutshell. Ronaldo was brilliant – and he was often implausibly brilliant –yet Messi always stepped up. In their summer, spring, autumn and winter.
It’s a crushing reality for sporting greats to accept. They long for the perfect farewell, to realise their last lingering dream, to bow on a high, and to end their career in the perfect way. They can’t imagine a day without the sport, without applause assaulting their ear-drums, and without the sheer rush of adrenaline that seizes them. They would suddenly confront the most difficult question of their life: “Who am I?”
It’s a peculiar plight of the sportsman. Movie legends can keep churning out hits forever. Al Pacino is 86; his latest movie will hit theatres this Christmas. Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote well into his late 70s, even after dementia hit him. Even singers, their voices creaking, would find concerts and audiences. Yet, sportsmen come with an expiry date. Retirement can provoke a loss of identity. Or worse, the first death. The former Argentina footballer and coach Jorge Valdano described it poetically: ” Footballers never talk about the end of their careers, for the same reason human beings don’t talk about death: it frightens them.” A sportsman dies twice. First, when they retire.
Both Messi and Ronaldo, of course, haven’t fully retired. They would continue playing for their clubs. Ronaldo would continue till he scores his thousandth competitive career goal; Messi would light up Miami nights till he feels his standards have plummeted entirely. But their end could not have been more different, but in rhyme with their personalities as we assume and imagine.
