milestheworm 's review for:

Messi Vs. Ronaldo: One Rivalry, Two GOATs and the Era That Remade the World's Game by Jonathan Clegg, Joshua Robinson

2.0

informative slow-paced

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Since this book was written with little first-hand reporting, its actual contents are very different from what the title and cover promise. Instead of learning about Messi and Ronaldo themselves, most of this book digresses into profiles of the businesses that surrounded the two players — such as lengthy histories of Adidas, La Liga television deals, PSG ownership, and many more. Plus, the book was written at a mostly random point in time: it comes to a dour conclusion about the two players and their teams, but it was published months before Messi’s 2022 World Cup victory. While the final product is well-written, there needed to be boots-on-the-ground journalism for the high promise of this book to deliver.