For more than a decade Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have been at the center of a fierce and largely 🛡 unsettled debate over who is the greatest player in soccer history.

A decade from now, they might still be part of 🛡 that debate. Only the question then may be more like “who were those two guys who came before Kylian Mbappe 🛡 and Erling Haaland?”

That might sound like a bit of a stretch, but consider the evidence.

Ronaldo, 38, and Messi, 36, rewrote 🛡 the record books, redefined greatness and took the sport to new plateaus. Soccer is more popular, more profitable and better-played 🛡 than at any point in its history, and Ronaldo and Messi, who defined an era if not an entire sport, 🛡 are big reasons why.

Playing much of their careers against one another in Spain’s La Liga — Messi for Barcelona and 🛡 Ronaldo for Real Madrid — they pushed one another, combining for 19 league championships, four Champions League titles and 13 🛡 Ballon d’Or awards, achieving levels of greatness together neither could have reached alone.