Pele vs Maradona, Luis Suarez vs PatriceEvra, John Terry vs Wayne Bridge. All of these are some of the rivalries that exist in football and extend outside of the pitch.

Some of those rivalries are due to racial claims and abuse between certain players while others originated after a player had an affair with the wife of his own teammate, it’s something that certainly goes beyond just playing football.

However, there is a rivalry in the world of football that is being battled and contended between 2 of the best players in the world and maybe even in the history of the sport. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are 2 of the best paid players in any sport but considering the influence that these performers have with their respective clubs it doesn’t come as a surprise why they are rated so highly.

The former Real Madrid player, Michael Laudrup stated that C.Ronaldo and Lionel Messi need each other in order to continue performing at their best.

‘’I think they need each other. If one scores a hat-trick, the other tries to beat that. They are two of the best, not just of this era, in 30 years we’ll be talking about them and the debate will be whether Messi, Cristiano, Maradona or Pele is the greatest of all time’’

When asked which of them he would rather have in his team, the Danish coach replied: ‘’both would have to be in it, as they’ve clearly been the best two over the past four or five years’’

The Ballon d’Or is considered to be the most difficult and prestigious individual award to receive in the world of football and Lionel Messi has earned this silverware on 4 successive seasons while C.Ronaldo has won it twice but the Portuguese attacker is the favorite on winning the 2014 FIFA Ballon d’Or and this competition that exists between both players is one of the reasons on why they continue wanting to earn more titles to their collection.