The one thing that kept Christiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Neymar from being considered as legends of football in their era is the fact that they did not win the world cup.
The three did very well at club football and collected all accolades available, winning championships and league trophies for their clubs as well as being voted best players for seasons upon seasons.
In fact in the last ten years the trio has dominated European football. So that if anybody drew up a list of the top five of anything relating to best football players of this day, the names of Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar will always appear there.
But no one would go to the extent of putting the three in the category of legends of football because when it came to their national teams, they failed to translate the magic for the nation as for the club like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Diego Maradona, Ronaldo, Thiery Henry, et cetera.
But now Lionel Messi has broken out and stamped his legendary character on the football map with the win of the Qatar World Cup.
Messi has now become the new Diego Maradona. Like him or hate him, but he did what 99% of football players could only dream of during their time.
Christiano Ronaldo is in the twilight days of his career, so that it’s highly unlikely that he will ever get a chance to win the world cup for Portugal.
But Neymar is still young. If he helps Brazil to win the next world cup, then his legendary profile will be stamped in the fading days of his career like Messi.
In the photo: Lionel Messi celebrating Argentina’s win of the World Cup.
