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?
Tim Howard has said that when he was at Man U, CR7 was already the hardest working player on the team, even though he was just a teenager. If you are looking for someone to model your work ethic on, you could do worse. I don’t like the guy, probably for the same reasons as a lot of others, but his work ethic is unquestionable.