Zinedine Zidane trolls Lionel Messi as he praises Cristiano Ronaldo

What's the story?

"There's no need to worry if Cristiano does not score, the important thing is that he has chances," Zidane said, speaking to the press after Ronaldo continued to draw blanks after his 5 shots yielded 0 goals against a fighting SD Eibar.

But the bombshell was when he not only proclaimed his superstar the best player of his generation but stated that no one was even close!

"Cristiano is the best player of his generation by far. "He's already showed that several times because he's always shown up in important games. He always makes the difference. The award he's going to win is most deserved; all the trophies he's winning are well deserved.

And he's not overly worried about the fact that his star has bagged only one La Liga goal this season (he does, though, have 5 Champions league goals) "The goals will come back little by little. We lacked fluency in this game but the important thing is that we have won and kept the clean sheet."

In case you didn't know

Cristiano Ronaldo, of course, won the BEST FIFA Men's Player of the Year for the second year in a row, just yesterday once again eclipsing Messi and adding fuel to arguably the greatest one-on-one rivalry the sport has seen till day... at least if their fans were to have their way.

The heart of the matter

Ernesto Valverde, meanwhile, responded with typical elan... "It's just an opinion like everyone else's," he said of Zidane's proclamation. "It's fine for me. What am I going to say?"

Hah. Fair enough!

Video

Here's Ronaldo accepting the award in London, yesterday

Class act, isn't he?

Author's Take

The debate of Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi is going to rule the world of football forever, isn't it?

As for Zidane's statement, while it was obvious that he would plump for his man (Imagine facing Cristiano in the dressing room after telling the world Leo is a better player) it is the extent of the praise that surprises somewhat.