Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi

As Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo prepare to face each other when Argentina play Portugal at Old Trafford on Tuesday, Pete Jenson looks at the rivalry and asks: do they really despise each other or is there a begrudging mutual respect?Unpleasant nicknamesIn his book about Jose Mourinho’s three years at Real Madrid, Diego Torres wrote that some of the people around Ronaldo had taken to referring to Messi as ‘the dwarf’ whenever they discussed him. The term seems to have been applied to motivate Ronaldo and convince him that he was better than the four-times Ballon d’Or winner. What Torres never suggests is that the derogatory comment ever came from Ronaldo himself.In Guillem Ballague’s book Messi, Ronaldo is said to refer to the Barcelona player as ‘Cabronazo’ in the Real Madrid dressing room. The Spanish swearword is translated as a particularly colourful epithet in the English version of the book but could just as easily be rendered as ‘bastard’, which in the context of a psyched-up dressing room before a Clasico would be nothing out of the ordinary. Ronaldo denies ever disrespecting Messi, tweeting in midweek: ‘I have the utmost respect for all my professional colleagues, and Messi is obviously no exception.’The wages warMuch of Ronaldo’s Messi-directed ire stems from his sense of injustice at not always being treated the same. At the 2012 European Footballer of the Year ceremony, Ronaldo was furious that then Barcelona president Sandro Rosell accompanied Messi and eventual winner Andres Iniesta to the presentation while Real Madrid president Florentino Perez stayed at home, sending low-ranking director Pedro Lopez in his place.Ronaldo at the time was also entering his fourth season at the club still with his original deal in place while it seemed Messi’s contract was being improved on an almost half-yearly basis. By September 2013 Perez had awarded Ronaldo a new five-year deal worth £17million a season putting him above Messi, whose deal was renewed at the end of the season to restore parity.(dailymail.co.uk)Bakudaily.Az