Endrick, a new football star recruited to Real Madrid, quoted Cristiano Ronaldo as his idol. This is also seen with Haaland, Mbappe, Saka, Vini Jr, Rodrygo, Kvara. So many young players today all state Ronaldo as an influence for them. Messi has more accolades than Ronaldo, but the only young players I can think that stated him as an influence is Julian Alvarez and Jude Bellingham. Why do you think most young players respect and admire Ronaldo more than Messi?
Also it was easier to watch MAN U than barca on tv back in the day
Ronaldo is an all out better goal scorer in my opinion. The types of the goals, the frequency, and difficulty of how many quality goals he has pulled off. He is the golden striker of the century.
Endrick, Vini were Messi fanboys before signing up for Madrid. Bellingham, Musiala & Davies and there are lot of other players that look upto Madrid. OP needs to check on those players who are either playing at different club or had no affiliation being a madrista as growing up. You will see the big picture, the names you mentioned are madristas except Saka and the name i mentioned are not Barca fans but they idolize Messi 👍🏻
Because Ronaldo is human. Messi is an alien. Young players cannot aspire to become an alien they merely can hope to perfect their human capabilities, like Ronaldo.
Youngsters look up to ronaldo for his hardwork, athleticism and attitude but players who actually played with both or the pundits bow to messi for his magic.
Example: Ramos and Bale are prime examples even mbappe
Becauae they’re young men, filled with testosterone, and are drawn to what they see as an alpha. I hate these kind of terms but there is no better way to describe it. Humanity sucks and footballers are human.
You can imitate Ronaldo but you don’t dare to imitate God. Ronaldo - you can break down him into individual pieces of technique. With Messi, it is in such a flow and unearthly magic that I fail to describe as a collection of moves or tricks. And I am mostly a Ronaldo fan.
Ronaldo embodies the grind necessary to accomplish great things
Ronaldo wasn’t even the best player at one point. iirc a teammate gave him his spot.
One word = MARKETABILITY. Basically pretty privilege. Ronaldo’s better looking, taller, better physique, plus his lifestyle. These are appealing to the kids. Playing for Real Madrid is one big factor as well.
Because he’s the greatest.
Because unlike most people on here, these players actually have been outside and touched grass. Also they aren’t virgins
Like I tell my friends it’s literally The Machine vs The Gift. I use the same analogy for Kobe and LeBron as well. With Ronaldo and Kobe it’s more storied than Messi and LeBron.
It’s just that people can do what ronaldo could do/does to a certain extent. Unless you’re just as gifted, you can’t replicate messi.
It’s more realistic to try to be like cr7.
You’ve already got a lot of good answers here, but another thing worth mentioning (which may be mentioned elsewhere already) is that none of the Brazilian players you’ve mentioned would ever pick an Argentinian as their idol, at least not publicly, which explains the Endrick/Vini etc angle