Messi vs. Ronaldo: One Rivalry, Two GOATs, and the Era That Remade the World's Game

Granted, football (soccer) is the one truly global team sport and Messi and Ronaldo its biggest stars, but they transcend the game and its reach with the omnipresence of their image. Their individual stories and undoubted greatness on the pitch are just the beginning in any attempt to understand how this came to be. The authors, two journalists from the Wall Street Journal, a sports correspondent and a senior editor, are very well positioned to give us the bigger picture, and explain “from the locker rooms to the board rooms” the breadth of the transformational era that hosted these two stellar players. This is an easy, entertaining, and insightful read, and although published before the 2022 World Cup, the outcome of the tournament we now know, is a fitting epilogue.

Great credit to Jonathan and Joshua for writing such an excellent book. Well researched and well written...couldn't put it down. Fascinating to learn so much about two GOATs of the game, two giants in Real Madrid and Barcelona in La Liga and the world of sports and the intertwined history of the world's game in the past two decades.Given how the recently completed 2022 World Cup played out, I can only imagine the revised epilogue the writers will include in subsequent editions.A joy to read and I've already ordered from Amazon a previous book by the authors, The Club, about how the English Premier League became the dominate sports league in the world...can't wait to read it.

This book is an interesting analysis of the careers of Messi and Ronaldo. The stories are told in parallel and the two players are used to contrast one another. The histories of numerous clubs like Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, PSG, and others are also described in an entertaining way.I give this 4/5 stars because the book ends rather abruptly with an epilogue about the upcoming World Cup. It might have been better to publish this book after both players have retired so there can be a fuller analysis of their careers. Also the authors don’t seem to have much information “from the horses mouth”, i.e. they don’t include much from direct interviews with either of the titular players. This makes much of the book seem like hearsay although it is entertaining. Best to take some of these anecdotes with a grain of salt

Excellent book: well researched and wonderfully presented. But it’s great accomplishment is showcasing how this generation of two are the first to become commercial institutions in themselves. For all their brilliance on the field, the question lurking between the lines is whether these superstars inadvertently have transformed the game into a commercial machine, which may not be the best thing overall…

This is an absolute MUST. Whether or not you like soccer, it's an incredible story about how two people transformed and defined an industry, alternating between hilarious, cutthroat and absurd.