Below is a summary of the full article. Click here for the full version or go back to LFC Live.net
Is anything in football quite as tired as the Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo debate?
But with Messi in Miami and Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia, it’s only in the last year or two that their long shadows have stopped dimming the light of such emerging stars.
READ MORE: Jürgen Klopp gives Liverpool title assessment and makes Champions League admission
READ MORE: Arne Slot could take four lessons from Liverpool loss at Everton as Dominik Szoboszlai snaps
Yet while it’s exciting to look forward, it’s also interesting to look back.
Not to relitigate the Messi vs Ronaldo debate (I’m team Messi, for whatever it’s worth), but to ask a far more intriguing question: if those two are the undisputed number one and two of the last 10 years, who is number three?
That very question was posted to the Reddit football forum, and the responses have been fascinating.
A certain vintage of Liverpool fan would jump to put Steven Gerrard in the debate, before realizing that only his final two seasons at Anfield fall within the reference period.
That’s also testimony to the longevity of Messi and Ronaldo, who were denying ‘best in the world’ shouts to the likes of Gerrard long before they were thwarting Van Dijk.
Striking up an immediate connection with Messi, as well as Neymar (another with a few mentions for that coveted ‘number three’ status), his second-season tally of 40 league goals and 18 assists actually beat Ronaldo on both counts.
That was certainly his real standout season in terms of the numbers, but he would go on to be a key contributor for many years.
Barcelona thought that Suárez had aged beyond his usefulness, sold him to a team it did not consider title rivals, and promptly watched him spur Diego Simeone’s side to La Liga glory.
That’s pretty special, and it’s been a repeating pattern.
For more news relating to Everton, visit our sister site EFC Live.
![[Valid RSS]](../valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")