Cristiano Ronaldo Betting Than Messi?
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez says Cristiano Ronaldo is the better player in this year's World Cup than Lionel Messi and insists he would not want the two of them playing together on his team.
"Messi is the second best player in the world after Cristiano," said Perez. "It would not be nice to have them both on the same team, there would be too much competition."
ESPN.com ranked Argentina's Messi number one, ahead of Ronaldo at number two.
"Lionel Messi is the best pound-for-pound soccer player in the world, and perhaps of all time. At 22, Messi has won just about everything there is to win, both individually and in club soccer. Missing is any sort of hardware with Argentina, aside from an Olympic gold medal. Messi's game relies on its unpredictability and magnificent control of the ball, which seldom demurs to anything Messi asks it to do."
Ronaldo plays for a Portugal squad that had odds of 16/1 coming into this week's World Cup play at Sportsbetting (see website here).
"Ronaldo has become a lethal dribbler, superlative header and long-distance shooter and one of the better free-kick takers on the planet and will anchor an aging Portugal looking to shine one last time."
Argentina pays 5/1 odds with a 2010 Super Bowl win.
Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com