FC Barcelona captain Lionel Messi has surprisingly been linked with Juventus since his recent fallout with his club's board, but could the six-time Ballon d'Or winner actually play in the same team as his greatest rival Cristiano Ronaldo?
What's better than having one of the greatest players the world has ever seen in your team? Having two of them. While it is, of course, highly unlikely that Messi will join Juventus, it is nice to imagine a world in which he shared a dressing room with Ronaldo.
The 32-year-old has been linked with a host of top clubs across Europe since his fallout with Barca sporting director Eric Abidal, despite reports suggesting that president Josep Maria Bartomeu has already thrown water over that scary, raging fire.
The thought everyone was left with was: will Messi leave Barcelona? And if he did leave Barcelona, where would he go? Italian publication La Gazzetta dello Sport mentioned Juventus as a potential suitor, so let's imagine it for a second.
Messi is better suited to starting wide on the right, and moving narrower. Whether it's to fetch the ball more centrally or because he's making a mazy run in-field, he naturally makes his way towards the goal from the touchline, which, being an inside forward/advanced playmaker, he does not hug like a traditional winger.
His longstanding rival Ronaldo may have begun his career as a right-winger, but as it progressed, we saw the Portuguese find his strengths on the opposite side of the field to Messi. In the latter stages of his Manchester United career and throughout his time at Real Madrid, he terrorised right-backs with his dribbling ability and speed, which he, like Messi, would use to cut inside rather than outside.
Today, Ronaldo is used as a cultured No. 9, although if he does drift from his position, he will usually, and perhaps unsurprisingly, finds himself on the left. Should Messi become his teammate, getting in the way of each other would not be a problem.
The Argentine would essentially be an upgrade on the team's current No. 10 Paulo Dybala, and while he and Ronaldo would not occupy each other's space in open play, this still does not mean there wouldn't be any problems as they might face their toughest challenge in sharing responsibilities.
That is, however, easily solvable. In terms of their current track records, it should arguably be Ronaldo over penalties, Messi over free-kicks and corners, but perhaps that discussion or decision by the manager would be more complicated to make than it sounds. These players do compete with each other for the biggest individual awards after all, and therefore could become more selfish if they're playing on the same side.
While it is almost impossible to imagine Ronaldo and Messi wearing the same jersey, it is something not many football fans would find themself opposed to. Seeing two of the game's greatest players do battle over the past 15 years has been a joy, but how great it would be to see them end their careers playing together?
