The highly-anticipated next chapter of the Lionel Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo rivalry won’t happen as planned, leaving doubts that the two stars who were the faces of the sport for over a decade will ever play each other again.
Ronaldo will miss Thursday’s friendly between Al-Nassr and Inter Miami due to a calf injury, his club announced Wednesday.
“Cristiano is in the final part of his recovery to join the group,” Al-Nassr manager Luís Castro told reporters.
“We expect that he can begin to work with the team in the next few days. He will be an element that will be absent from the game.”
Thursday’s match, which is part of the Riyadh Season Cup in Saudi Arabia, was hyped to be the final club match between Messi and Ronaldo as both players have left the European club leagues over the last year. Ronaldo was the first to depart Europe, joining Al-Nassr in January 2023, while Messi opted to go to Inter Miami in July.
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With Ronaldo turning 39 on Monday and Messi turning 37 in June, the clock is ticking on possible future matchups between the soccer titans. Messi has indicated that he plans to end his club career with Miami and admitted in July that his international career is likely coming to an end “soon.”
Messi and Ronaldo have gone head-to-head 37 times in their careers, with the bulk of those matches occurring when Messi’s time at FC Barcelona and Ronaldo’s tenure at Real Madrid overlapped for nine seasons (2009-18). They’ve only gone up against each other twice since Ronaldo departed from Real Madrid in 2018. They last went up against each other in January 2023, when Messi went up against the Saudi Pro League XI that included Ronaldo while he was still with Paris Saint-Germain.
They’ve also only faced each other twice in international matches, with both games being friendlies.
If the soccer greats have faced each other for the last time, Messi holds the series edge between the two. His teams have gone 17-11-9 against Ronaldo’s teams, though both players have scored 23 goals over those 37 matches.
As for what lies ahead, Messi and Inter Miami will conclude their preseason tour in Hong Kong and Japan next week. After it hosts Messi’s former Argentinian club team for a friendly, Inter Miami will open up the 2024 MLS regular season against Real Salt Lake on Feb. 21.
Ronaldo, meanwhile, has been dealing with the calf injury in recent weeks as Al-Nassr canceled its China tour as a result. Al-Nassr is second in the Saudi Pro League table this season, trailing Al-Hilal by seven points through 19 weeks.
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