Messi and Ronaldo take a photo together
The photo belongs to the promotional campaign of fashion brand Louis Vuiton, shared by both Messi and Ronaldo on their personal pages. In it, the Argentine superstar wrote on Instagram: "Victory is a state of mind".
The photo of Messi playing chess with Ronaldo created a fever right after it was posted. Within the first hour, the photo received nearly 20 million likes and hundreds of thousands of comments. Major media outlets call this "photo of the century" or "historic moment". Transfer expert Fabrizio Romano called it "photo of the year", while Spanish newspaper AS saw it as the next feat of photographer Annie Leibowitz.
Leibowitz, 73 years old, has taken many photos for a lifetime in his career. Before the 2010 World Cup, she photographed three stars Diego Maradona, Pele and Zinedine Zidane playing foosball. In the 1980s, American photographer famous for his photograph of music legend John Lennon published in Rolling Stones magazine.
The picture of Ronaldo and Messi playing chess is meticulously arranged. It simulates the chess game between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. In this position, if it is Ronaldo's turn, he is more likely to win, and if it is Messi's turn, the match will end in a draw. In fact, the game of Carlsen and Nakamura had a draw. This is like a metaphor of how difficult it is to distinguish between Messi and Ronaldo as the best player of all time. "Second greatest rival pair imitating the greatest pair," Carlsen joked about the photo on Twitter.
Messi and Ronaldo define the 2022 World Cup as the last World Cup in their careers. Both lack this noble title. Messi played the final in 2014, and Ronaldo has not reached the final.
In an interview with Piers Morgan recently, Ronaldo was full of praise for Messi. He considers his rival to be the best player, possesses magical legs and claims that the two are on good terms, although not close. Many years ago, while sitting together at the Champions League draw, Ronaldo once asked to have dinner with Messi.
Ronaldo's Portugal will play their first World Cup match against Ghana on November 24, while Messi's Argentina will face Saudi Arabia on November 22.
