2024-04-08 13:13:38
Text: Editorial Cuba Noticias 360
Foto: Odayl Jamil Moari | Shutterstock
The worst nightmare of millions of football fans around the planet came true: the long-awaited and mega-promoted last dance The last dance between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi will not take place this Thursday, when the Argentine star’s Inter Miami faces the Portuguese star’s Al Nassr in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia.
The alarms had already gone off since the previous week when the Arab club canceled a tour of China due to “the physical condition” of the former Real Madrid scorer, among other teams, according to a statement issued by the team led by Portuguese coach Luis Castro. .
Ronaldo’s absence for the match against the American eleven was confirmed today by coach Castro himself, who noted that he is “in the final stage of his recovery and will be with us in the coming days.” “He won’t play tomorrow,” he said.
Sports media from around the world closely followed Cristiano’s injury, since expectations for the friendly match between both teams were through the roof based on the controversial statements that the forward issued a few weeks ago, regarding the quality of the Saudi League with respect to others like the French one.
After a bitter rivalry that has already spanned more than three decades, there is still debate between the defenders of both players about who is better, and this was a new opportunity to add fuel to that fire that seems to never go out.
Messi, 36, and Cristiano, 38, faced each other 35 times between April 2008 and May 2018, while in the following six years they barely played one official match, in December 2020 and for the Champions League.
The last time both stars met on a soccer field happened a little over a year ago at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, which will also host tomorrow’s confrontation between Inter Miami and Al Nassr.
However, at that time Messi arrived as a brand new world champion with Argentina and was still wearing the PSG shirt. Cristiano, for his part, captained a selection of players from Al Nassr and Al Hilal, the two clubs in the Saudi capital.
The match ended 5-4 in favor of the Parisians, with two goals from Ronaldo and one from Messi, leaving the scoring tally at 23 goals per side in direct confrontations. Now, everything seems to indicate that this scoring embrace will persist for eternity.