When it comes to ranking soccer’s greatest, they don’t get much greater than Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi.
The Argentine has unsurprisingly earned himself a number of fans during his illustrious career with former England star Wayne Rooney ranking Messi above Cristiano Ronaldo – a statement that has been echoed by many other ex-pros.
Eden Hazard also chose Messi as his GOAT, meanwhile, Pep Guardiola once claimed Messi was ‘different from everyone else’.
There are however some sections of the soccer world, who don’t agree with this thought – Roy Keane being one of them.
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Roy Keane ignores Lionel Messi in GOAT debate
Speaking in 2022, the former Manchester United star was asked to list his top-three players of all time and the Irishman would surprisingly exclude Messi from his list.
Appearing on SkySports Monday Night Football, alongside Jamie Carragher – Keane said:
“Away from that Maradona would have to be up there, Ronaldo and then I’d probably say Zidane for me. He was amazing and I was lucky enough to play against him.
“Brilliant player, nasty, scored a goal, won the big prizes. Hard to beat that.”
Jamie Carragher disagreed with Keane’s surprising Messi claim
Keane’s claims that Argentine ranks below his Portuguese counterpart could be seen as a fair statement by much of the soccer world – with USMNT star Weston Mckennie also ranking Ronaldo above Messi.
To rank both Maradona and Zidane above Messi however, is something that may have surprised a lot of supporters, with Carragher himself disagreeing with his fellow pundit’s claims.
“Forget players I hadn’t seen, so I didn’t want to get involved with Cruyff, Pele and things like that. So, just the players that have made me go ‘wow’ since the mid-80s,” he begun. “Number one, for me, would be Messi.
“I said last week, if Argentina won the World Cup it would cement him, in a lot of peoples’ eyes, as the number one.”
