“These players will be eternal” - Pep Guardiola names Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi among 6 greatest players of all time
Manchester City's legendary manager Pep Guardiola has included Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in his list of six greatest players of all time.
Ronaldo and Messi are widely regarded as two of the best players to have graced the beautiful game. Despite being on the wrong side of 30, both are still going strong, having scored over 800 goals for club and country since debuting in the early 2000s.
Apart from the duo, Guardiola also named Pele, Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer in his list of the game's greatest players.
"I never pretend to be Pele, honestly," he said (as per SPORTbible). "I never saw him play, I spoke with people who said he was the greatest for them. What he has done, not just winning three World Cups, the goals and he was a new thing when he came up."
"I was not born when he was playing. It's like a good movie, the legacy that we're still talking about him, about a good movie, a good book, because he was so good. Pele, (Diego) Maradona, (Johan) Cruyff, (Lionel) Messi, (Franz) Beckenbauer, Cristiano Ronaldo, these players will be eternal.
He concluded:
"They have done many things for many years, these types of players make our business, our job, a better place. What he produced for the feeling for the people.
"We have seen the World Cup, one team can produce for a country, it's incredible. It's not another event can produce this emotion. This part of exceptional players can produce the emotion for the players."
How have Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi fared against Pep Guardiola?
While Cristiano Ronaldo has never played in a Pep Guardiola team, Lionel Messi has both played for and against the legendary Spaniard's sides.
Ronaldo has played 14 times against Guardiola's Barcelona, scoring eight times and emerging on the winning side just twice. He lost his only game for Manchester United against the Spaniard's Manchester City side (in the Premier League), without scoring. Ronaldo scored twice in as many games against Guardiola's Bayern Munich.
Meanwhile, Messi has scored five times against Pep Guardiola's Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League. That includes four goals and an assist in two games with Barcelona and one goal in two games with PSG. Messi won two of those games.
In two games against Guardiola's Bayern Munich, Messi scored twice and assisted once in the same game, which he won.