Former England and Chelsea player Joe Cole has sided with Lionel Messi in the long-running debate over who is the better player of him and Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi scored his first goal for PSG on Tuesday in superb style as he curled an effort from outside the box into the top corner in the 2-0 win over Manchester City.
Injury had caused the Argentine forward to have an underwhelming first few weeks with his new side, but he put that behind him with the goal in the Champions League.
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Cole had no doubts that Messi would succeed with PSG, and his latest piece of brilliance only confirmed for him that he is the greatest player, ahead of Ronaldo.
‘It was only a matter of time, it was a beautiful goal,’ Cole told BT Sport of Messi’s goal against the Premier League club. ‘He was going to turn up in a big game against Man City.
‘You still get some people saying, “would he be able to do it in England?” Well he’s scored goals against the best team in England at the moment.
‘What he does so well…to do that at that pace, he’s being leant on, and to get a nice connection and reverse it into the top corner is unbelievable
‘For me he’s still the greatest, still the best in the world, I’m just so excited to see what he can do with this PSG team.’
After the game, Pep Guardiola described the former Barcelona player as ‘unstoppable’ after watching Messi fire beyond goalkeeper Ederson in Paris.
‘We dealt with PSG first of all, but we know it’s impossible to control Leo for 90 minutes,’ Guardiola said.
‘He was not much in touch with the ball – of course he was coming back from injury, he needed a bit of rhythm – but we know quite well when he can run and get close to the ball, he is unstoppable.’
Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo also scored the winning goal for the Red devils in a 2-1 victory over Villarreal in the Champions League.
