Annie Liebovitz / Louis Vuitton
A study across 26 countries suggests the rivalry between Messi and Ronaldo may reflect deeper social and political values. The Portuguese player leads preferences in more countries than the Argentinean, but… Portugal is not the country with the greatest inclination towards CR7.
Who prefers: Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo? The discreet genius or the tireless athlete? It is one of the most intense debates in sport, on the level of “Jordan versus LeBron” or “Federer versus Nadal or Djokovic”.
But, according to a new study, it could also be at the level of “liberal versus conservative”, because, it turns out, this preference can be correlated with people’s political positions, says .
In 26 countries and among more than 10,000 respondents, participants more liberals tended to prefer Messi. The most conservative tended to prefer Ronaldo. But why?
The debates about the “GOAT”, an English acronym for “the best of all time“, are always biased.
It is true that one can invoke statistics, trophies and individual achievementsbut, in the end, there is always something subjective that numbers can never capture. This is especially true in a rivalry like Messi and Ronaldo.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo dominated the same was. For a few years, they played for rival clubs — Barcelona and Real Madrid, respectively. Both reunited huge legions of supporters and built extraordinarily successful careers.
Just find someone even slightly interested in football to be likely to have a strong opinion on the topic.
But the authors of the new , recently published in SSRN, argue that this preference It may not just be about football.
Messi is often seen as modest, discreet and team-oriented. Ronaldo is often read as assertive, self-promotional and focused on individual excellence.
This does not mean that both players are necessarily like this, but rather that this is the image they project to most people. These images fit into broader social values: counter domain cooperationdeference against hierarchy, collective success versus individual triumphl.
Saifuddin Ahmed, from NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, who led the study, suggests that the political identity may be associated with this type of cultural preferences.
“Messi and Ronaldo design personas markedly different public. Messi is commonly associated with a more low-key, team-oriented image, while Ronaldo is known for openly expressing his ambition and celebrating individual achievement. People may be more attracted to the player whose public image aligns with your broader values“.
A Ronaldocracia
In the sample set, 8 countries leaned significantly towards Messiwhile 11 Have Leaned Significantly Toward Ronaldo and 7 did not show significant differences.
The results by country were revealing. Unsurprisingly, Argentina showed the strongest preference for Messi, followed closely by South Korea. But the effect of country of origin was not symmetrical. THE Argentine preference for Messi it was much more stronger than the Portuguese preference for Ronaldo.
Portugal, Ronaldo’s home country, was not even the country of the sample more inclined towards the Portuguese player: Indonesia, Türkiye, Mexico, Egypt and Malaysia revealed an even stronger bias in their favor.
The study tested whether the football strength of each country affected the resultss, but this factor did not appear to be decisive. THE policyhowever, seemed to be correlated with this preference.
People who scored higher on authoritarianism, measured through approval of a strong leader that you don’t have to worry about parliament and elections, tended more towards Ronaldo.
The same happened with people with higher self-esteem. Cognitive reflection, a measure of analytical thinking, predicted a slight bias towards Messi. Empathy did not appear to affect preference. Overall, however, people more liberals tended to prefer Messi.
O news consumption in traditional media it also did not seem to have influence. The consumption of news in short videos has increased. The people who received the most news through short videos in feeds scroll were more likely to prefer Ronaldoeven after considering factors such as ideology, demographics, personality and other variables.
This is presumably due to the way Ronaldo presents himself and the way people social networks propagate this imageargues the study. Ronaldo’s public image is particularly suited to media environments high frequency and very performative. The authors suggest that exposure to platforms can shape cultural attachments in ways separate from the ideology itself.
What does this really mean
The researchers argue that rivalry is unusually useful because both players are world famous, extremely successful and valued by audiences around the world. This means that the “object” of the debate remains relatively constantwhile the audience varies between countries and political systems.
Objectively, there’s not that much separating the twos — certainly not enough to justify a strong preference. What seems to happen is that preference reveals personal biaseswhich are also linked to politics.
Of course this doesn’t mean that all liberals like Messi; this is a slight difference. Furthermore, the study has important limitations.
Ideology and authoritarianism were each measured with just one survey item. The study does not prove that political identity causes people to prefer one player over another. And the researchers relied on journalistic descriptions of the two public personas, instead of asking directly interviewed how they perceived the traits of Messi and Ronaldo.
Still, the Messi-Ronaldo debate could be about more than just football: it could have a social meaning. Fans may think they are choosing between two types of greatness, but perhaps they are also choosing between two types of identity.
