Advanced English Conversation: Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo | Learn English Phrases

- Hello, everybody.

This is Jack from tofluency.com,

and today, Rodrigo and I are going to have a debate.

- A debate? - Yeah.

We are going to talk about, and we're going to debate

who is better out of Messi and Ronaldo.

And this is an opportunity for you

to listen to natural English,

and I will leave all the phrases that we use

in the description, too,

but first, Rodrigo is one of my good friends

here in Nashville, and he is on the soccer team, too,

so we talk soccer a lot, we play together,

and we often talk about Ronaldo versus Messi.

- I think anybody who enjoys soccer has this conversation.

At least for our generation,

they're the natural, who's one, who's number two?

- Yeah.

- I'm obviously, as we've talked about ofen,

a big Ronaldo fan, and I think Messi's great,

and he's been really good,

but I don't think he overcomes Ronaldo.

- Yeah, whereas I'm a big Ronaldo fan,

but I see Messi as a level above.

- I wonder, though, oftentimes most people,

I think, think that, and I think it's also

has a lot to do with Ronaldo's personality.

- That is one thing, so--

- Which I don't think should be taken into account.

- I agree.

I agree, I think 'cause people perceive Ronaldo

to be quite single-minded,

quite selfish on the pitch at times,

whereas Messi is more reserved.

He's seen more as a team player, I feel.

- I think he just doesn't have very much personality.

- No.

- Like Ronaldo has personality,

he wears his emotions on his sleeve.

He's happy, everybody knows it.

He's sad or angry, everybody knows it as well.

And I don't know, I guess personally enjoy that.

I wanna feel that energy or that excitement.

- Yeah, he does bring that.

- For sure. - Yeah.

- And I think the other thing is

what do you do outside of the club matters a lot

because especially when you play at these super clubs,

you're surrounded by so much talent,

and when you get into that conversation

of who's the greatest of all time,

or who's the greatest of our generation, they're that good,

if you're gonna have them in that conversation,

they really need to raise the level of play around them,

and be able to shine in less than ideal circumstances.

- So do you place Ronaldo and Messi

above players such as Zidane?

- It's a little challenging because Zidane,

I only watched him a little bit in the '98 World Cup,

which is kind of on the backend of his career,

and I was eight years old,

and so it wasn't like I had a ton of exposure to him.

But I would say that I would,

maybe a better comparison for me is Beckham.

'Cause I saw him play live one time

when he was still with Real Madrid,

and I would say, yeah, I would raise them above that

because I think they've had a greater influence on the game,

and of course, I'm biased.

I'm way more familiar with them.

- Yeah, and their stats are just

out of this world. - Insane.

- You can't compare their stats to any other player

'cause it's just head and shoulders above

what others have done recently.

So, especially since,

'cause Ronaldo, when he first came to England,

he was very flashy.

- Yes.

- And people talked about how he had no end product.

He couldn't provide that final cross,

he couldn't score a goal.

And then, there's an interview with Gary Neville,

do you know Gary Neville?

- Yep.

- And he talked about,

he just came back over the summer,

and he was a completely different player.

He was an animal, and that's when he started

to just score all the time and provide goals.

- I think that's one of my favorite things about Ronaldo

and why I really think it puts him above Messi is

Ronaldo has shown that he can change

and adapt his style of play to what's needed

or expected on him in different teams

and in different stages of his career.

To talk about Ronaldo, he used to be the speed guy,

and now he's become the clinical finisher,

now that he's lost some of that speed.

And we've seen him have incredible careers

in Portugal, England, Spain, and even now in Italy.

That's really impressive,

and not to mention everything he's done with Portugal,

and at the national level,

I think that's where you even have a bigger separation

because I think there are less big-name players

on the Portuguese soccer team

than there are on the Argentinian soccer team,

and yet, the difference of quality

and what they mean to those teams is completely different.

- Whereas I see the,

'cause Ronaldo has done it at the international level.

He won the European championships.

He did come off injured early on in that game, but--

- But that is actually I think one of his greatest,

arguably one of the most important things.

If you saw him that game,

he was the most passionate player on the field,

even though he was on the bench.

And that was incredible.

- Yup.

I know what you mean, he was cheering the team on.

He was passionate behind them.

- His influence was still felt on the game.

- But that team, that Portuguese team was quite negative,

and they built a very solid team structure

where Ronaldo put on the finishing touches,

whereas I feel with Messi and Argentina,

it's just been a mess over the last six, seven years,

where they try and put in all these players

without any type of strategy in place.

- Agreed wholeheartedly,

but then, how many times have you heard these articles

or things where he made this, Ronaldo has this new coach,

I forgot his name right now,

Sarri I think, right? - Yeah.

- Sarri went and talked to Ronaldo ahead of time

to quote, unquote get signed off on the move, and why?

Because Ronaldo's not just gonna sit by

and let things happen around him.

He's gonna be very aggressive and being like,

no, if I'm on this team, we're going to do well,

and so it's almost like Sarri had to make sure

he had buy-in from Ronaldo 'cause if Ronaldo had agreed

to whatever Sarri was doing,

the rest of the team's gonna follow.

You never hear about this from Messi.

The chaos that's happened on the Argentinian national team,

could you envision that being the case if Ronaldo was there?

There's no way.

- Oh, I think it would be.

- He would just say, screw the coach,

and just say, all right, you guys listen to me.

This is how we're playing.

And people would listen!

And they do what he says!

- I feel that's a hypothetical there.

You couldn't ever test.

I know I've seen this so many times over the years

with Argentina, where they don't have any strategy.

They'll just put out their three players up front,

and it's just chaos.

It seems like they're always playing scared, that team.

From being from South America,

you know the history with Argentina.

- I mean, it is crazy.

I mean, they've always been one of the giants there,

but a very underperforming giant.

- All right, so let's just talk about them

as individual players,

and we look at different parts of the game

and say which one is better.

- Okay.

- So I'm gonna start with an easy one for Ronaldo.

Heading.

- Oh, well.

(both laugh)

When you've got, what, six to eight inches of height,

yeah, you better win that one.

- He is one the best headers of the ball I've seen.

- Clinical.

- He is incredible.

Although there is a clip

of Real Madrid and Barcelona playing,

and Messi out-jumping Ronaldo.

Everyone likes to look at that.

- [Announcer] Messi.

- Okay, so heading without a doubt.

This is an interesting one, finishing.

- I would probably...

Ooh, that is a tough one.

- Who would you trust with a one-on-one

with the goalkeeper more?

'Cause to me, that's easy.

- Yeah, I would probably say Messi.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I don't know if I'd say it's easy,

but I would say, yeah, I would default to Messi,

saying being the better finisher.

- Free kicks?

- I don't think either of them

are particularly great at that.

- Messi last season.

His stats were unreal.

- But I mean, that was like an aberration a little bit,

wouldn't you agree?

- Well, it might be the new normal.

You never know. - Fair enough.

- I'd say penalties, Ronaldo.

Messi has this habit of missing them.

- For the national team in big moments.

- Well, we'll have to look at that.

He misses a lot of penalties

for Barcelona in the regular season.

- A lot of the reasons they've been knocked out

has been his inability to finish penalties

when they've been needed to at international competitions,

but that's a different-- - Mhm, yup.

- But yeah, so penalties, Ronaldo's better, yeah.

- I don't like the term natural ability,

but in terms of--

- Well, I think natural ability, it's Messi.

- Yeah.

Well, in terms of who has the most amount of grace

and flair and skill when they're running with the ball.

- Oh, it's Ronaldo, I think.

- Really?

- I think so.

- Oh, that's where I really disagree.

- Because I think Ronaldo, I don't know.

I think, well, it's running with the ball.

In confined spaces, Messi looks better 'cause he's smaller.

He can maneuver, but if you're talking

running with the ball, onto the ball,

I feel like Ronaldo looks way smoother.

- Well, just-- - He's got the size,

that stride.

- Ronaldo has that strength and power when he runs,

and you don't want him running directly at you,

whereas Messi, I mean, it's very rare

that you'll see a Ronaldo goal

where he takes on six players.

- Right.

- He'll take on one and smash it in the corner,

whereas Messi, there are so many goals,

where he's like dink, dink, dink, dink, dink,

megs. - Correct.

Right, but that's what I would just say is differing,

and that's maybe just how you're defining it is

running with the ball is very different

than dribbling in confined spaces,

which is Messi's, one of his best strengths probably.

- Okay, yeah, definitely.

- But if you think somebody running onto the ball,

that never happens for Messi almost.

He's too small to run onto the ball

and beat somebody with speed on the side.

- Passing ability and creativity.

- Ronaldo.

- (sighs) That's just easy Messi.

An easy Messi pick.

- Really? - Yes.

- Okay. - Yeah.

Messi is a player who will drop deep

and find that perfect pass.

Ronaldo in his old career

before he moved to the number nine position,

he would put in a good cross, but then that soon changed

to always cutting inside and shooting.

- Right, but so we're talking about assists?

- Assists, creativity, pacing.

- Creativity outside of assists?

I feel like Ronaldo opens up a lot of things,

plays people.

If he's within the goal, he's gonna go for goal,

but if he's in a position

where shooting on a goal isn't really possible,

I feel like he opens things up,

more passes the ball more creatively,

no looks, stuff like that. - No.

This is what I wanna ask everyone.

Who is more creative out of Ronaldo, Messi?

'Cause for me, it's just an easy pick, Messi.

With just the little left-foot dinks

and sliding people in,

and if you look at the stats he has,

that's where he is definitely ahead in terms of stats

when it comes to assists.

- I don't know what the stats are, so.

The numbers should speak for themselves, then. (laughs)

- I feel this one is an easy Ronaldo pick,

and it's work rate.

- Oh, yeah.

On that one, maybe this is a no,

who's had a better evolution as a player?

- A better what?

- Evolution as a player. - Oh yeah.

Well, one of the things about that is

Messi's still two, three years younger than Ronaldo,

and Ronaldo was still playing his game

two or three years ago.

And last season, you saw Messi drop in deeper

and dictating play, so he has gone from that false nine

that he always played to a more deeper, creative position.

And there's one game against Tottenham.

- Oh yeah. - In the Champions League.

- That was his mantle piece game.

- He just did everything, just did everything.

I think the jury's still out on that one.

- What about leadership?

Who would you prefer to be captaining your team?

- I'd probably say Ronaldo,

although I do feel at times he gets mad

with the players for not passing him the ball.

There's so many clips of when someone else has scored

for Real Madrid, and he seems down

because he didn't get that goal.

- Yeah.

I think that that's a valid concern.

I sometimes wonder how much of that is built up

by the media again just because of his personality.

Going back to the whole thing,

we can come back to the comparisons,

but when you're looking at the main reason

I put Ronaldo above Messi is that leadership component.

I think that if you're talking about greatest of all time,

greatest of our generation, that part can't be excluded.

- Yeah.

And your big thing about Ronaldo is the big moments?

- He shows up, shines.

- I think they both do.

And the international stage,

I'm not convinced about how much of a role

that plays in their career.

- Yeah, and I think if you take the international out of it,

I would probably say Messi's the better player.

I just think that the international role

isn't more important than the club, 'cause it's not,

but I think it really shows light

on how good they really are.

Because Messi, we've only seen him at Barcelona

surrounded by the best talent ever.

- Except for the last two or three seasons.

Because that's when Xavi and Iniesta

and those types of players moved on,

and Suarez has struggled last year,

but Messi still, he won the league for Barcelona last year.

- True, but we're talking about

generational midfield talent that left.

It's not like he still doesn't have good talent around him.

Yes, Suarez wasn't very good,

but the year before that, Neymar was beside him, right?

That's why I think it's interesting is when you look,

two really incredible players,

pull them out of their traditional element,

and who's gonna do better?

I think historically, we've seen Ronaldo does better

outside of his clubs, and I think that that's telling.

- Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

And that is now definitely a big argument for Ronaldo.

Do you think that they could play in the same team together?

- Huh, I've never thought about that.

Yeah, I don't know if they could, right?

I think that they-- - I think they'd kill it.

(Jack laughs) - Well I mean,

they would be amazing, but do you think that they would?

- Yeah, I do--

- Do you think that they would team up?

- Yeah.

- Man, I hope we see that happen.

That would be incredible.

- I'd love to see it happen. - Yeah.

- I think they would do really well,

especially at this stage of their career,

where Ronaldo would play that striker role,

and Messi would just be off him.

- I mean, absolutely.

I mean, if that ever happens,

that'd be special. - Yeah.

- There's no way that ever happens, though, right?

- No, I don't think so.

- I mean, there's been stars that played together,

but I mean, Messi's never leaving Barcelona.

- I don't see him leaving any time soon.

- If he leaves, it's gonna be

to go to the MLS or something like that.

- That would be amazing if he came.

- But it'd be very similar to what Zlatan did.

He's like, eh, I'm gonna go there to retire.

He's not playing seriously. - No.

(Rodrigo laughs)

No, and he had a really good season

for Man United the year he left.

But then again, it's a different level

completely. - Oh yeah.

It'd be great if they ever played together,

that would be very cool.

One other thing. - Yes.

- I think that Ronaldo leaving Real Madrid speaks

to the type of player who he is.

He's like, I'm leaving something that's super comfortable,

and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go find a new challenge,

go prove, go win another trophy in a different league.

How do you not want that from, that is, I don't know.

- Well, he also fell out with the president.

- True.

- And I don't know how much of that

was him trying to prove himself,

but he did prove himself in Italy.

- Yeah, and I think year number two,

it's gonna be an even more bigger jump,

even more of a dominant performance.

- Well, we'll see, I guess.

- Really excited, yeah.

- And where would you place Ronaldo and Messi

in the greatest of all time?

- Now, we did talk about this,

and we said it's so hard for us to talk

to place someone there

'cause we haven't seen these players play.

- And the game's changed so much, too.

- But we can still try.

- I mean, I think they're both top 10 for sure, right.

I think we'd agree with that. - Yes.

- I think the question is

do they both make it into the top five?

Probably, they both make it into the top five.

- Yeah.

- I don't know what my personal,

but I mean, it gets crowded, right,

'cause you're gonna get Pele, right?

Maradona?

Messi, Ronaldo, and then who's the fifth?

- Tom Finney, Sir Tom Finney.

- [Announcer] Tommy Norton passes to Preston's Tom Finney,

who slams it into the net.

- Fair enough. (Jack laughs)

- Not super familiar with him.

It's your English roots coming out, eh?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I don't know,

would you take any of them out for somebody else?

- No, I don't think so.

And I always feel as well because when you talk

about the greatest player,

we're always talking about strikers and forwards.

You'd never put a defender in that

because you could argue Maldini is top five

from what I've seen of him. - Yeah.

- You could argue a goalkeeper as well.

- Well, I mean, like Oliver Kahn.

- I wouldn't say him.

- Oh man, he was like, all right, fine, take out--

- He's German. (laughs) - Yeah,

but he was awesome, and I don't know, he was,

well, I played keeper growing up

'cause he was a shorter keeper, too, and so.

- For me, it's Schmeichel.

- I don't know who Schmeichel is.

- You don't know Schmeichel?

- I don't know Schmeichel.

- The '90s Man United?

- Oh, see, yeah, I mean, I don't know.

In the '90s, I wasn't doing much of anything.

- Yeah, how old are you?

- 29.

- 29, right.

- I'm a '90s baby, so. - Yeah, I'm '80s.

- Most of my soccer is late, late '90s to the present.

- Right.

Well, I'd be interested to know what everyone else thinks,

and who do you think is the greatest of all time?

And also, who's better out of Messi and Ronaldo?

- And I have a question, greatest non-scoring midfielder,

like non-attacking.

I think Iniesta's probably one of my favorite.

That guy, what he's done is incredible,

and yeah, but he never really scored a lot of goals

just because of where he played.

- Yeah.

Yeah, for me I'd say Zidane.

I saw Zidane live.

- Oh cool.

- In the same team as Beckham,

and Beckham really surprised me.

Just his range of passing, I think he was very underrated.

- Oh yeah, I mean, he could just put the ball

from anywhere on the field with his hand and be like,

I'm gonna move it over there.

- He played for Preston.

- Yeah, yeah, that's right.

I think you mentioned that before.

- Yeah, played five games, scored two goals.

A free kick and another one direct from a corner.

- Hm, crazy.

- And everyone knew he was gonna be amazing,

you could tell. - Yeah.

- Well, good, thank you so much for being here, Rodrigo.

- Thanks for inviting me on.

Stir the pot in the soccer world, right?

- Exactly, exactly.

People have asked for these soccer videos,

so here you go.

And yeah, if you've enjoyed this video,

then please like and share it,

and check out the description for some of the phrases

that we used in this video.

I think we used a few football cliches, which is good.

- Mhm, I think so. - Yeah, all right.

Thanks for watching.

Bye. - Have a good one.

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