Ronaldo or Messi? Ex-Atletico Madrid star reveals who was the hardest to defend

As one of the players with the most experience playing against Ronaldo and Messi, Diego Godin has opened up on the iconic duo.

Former Atletico Madrid defender Diego Godin found it more difficult to defend against Lionel Messi than Cristiano Ronaldo.

The 36-year-old Uruguayan played in LaLiga between 2010 and 2019 for Atletico. He has faced Messi 41 times in his club and international career so far and taken on Ronaldo on 34 occasions.

¿CÓMO ES MARCAR A MESSI Y CR7? Las palabras de un experimentado en la materia: Diego Godín. @espnfutbolarg pic.twitter.com/pyC6PyLcPM

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“For me, it is more difficult to mark Messi,” Godin told ESPN.

“We are contemporaries. All my time in Europe I had the bad luck of coinciding with both of them. They took several titles from us at Atletico Madrid. Without Messi at Barcelona or Cristiano at Real Madrid, we would have had some more LaLiga titles and maybe the Champions League. We competed with the generation of these monsters.”

Godin now plays for Velez Sarsfield after joining the Argentinian club on a free transfer from Brazilian side Atletico-MG last summer.

Ronaldo and Messi, meanwhile, possibly played against each other for the final time last week. The pair took part in an exhibition between Paris Saint-Germain and Riyadh XI, a combined XI of Al Nassr and Al Hilal players.

Both players scored for their respective sides. Messi opened the scoreline, while Ronaldo bagged a brace. The game ended in a 5-4 win for PSG.