Philip Quinn, John Brennan and Paul Lennon joined the Saturday Panel to discuss the one piece of silverware that has eluded the grasps of both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi...the World Cup.
The Real Madrid and Barcelona icons will undoubtedly go down in history as two of the greatest players to have ever played the game. And some might argue that one of them is the single best player the sport has ever seen.
Pele, who collected three World Cups, and Maradona, who lifted the trophy in 1986 are considered to be Ronaldo’s and Messi’s greatest rivals for the accolade.
But John Brennan raised the question about how a World Cup success would affect their standing in the game.
“Will it define the careers of Messi and Ronaldo if they don’t win the World Cup?” Brennan asked.
“This is Messi’s fourth go. The manager miraculously managed to leave him off in 2006 when they needed a goal against Germany because he had used all his subs.
“And this is Ronaldo’s fourth [too].”
Philip Quinn interrupted to have his say as he defended the current standing of Ronaldo and Messi.
“I don’t think their careers are necessarily going to be defined by World Cups,” Quinn said.
Brennan continued before highlighting the importance of television coverage in how players will be remembered.
“They probably won’t be because we now see so many matches. That’s what we remember Pele’s and Maradona’s career for because we never saw him [Maradona] winning the league with Napoli.”
James Hopper
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