Ex-Man United defender Gary Neville has kicked off a massive social media war between fans of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) frontman Lionel Messi and former Real Madrid and Juventus talisman Cristiano Ronaldo when he described the Portuguese maestro as the greatest of all time (GOAT).
"Look, there's no doubt that Messi's scored an obscene amount of goals," Neville said on Monday. "He's a ridiculous player."
"[But] Ronaldo's scored probably 30 or 40 percent more with his wrong foot and he's scored more penalties. So it just took me to a point where he was more complete in terms of the most important part of the game," he added.
"The thing that tips it over the edge even more is that international record, of the most international goals ever. The fact that he's won five Champions Leagues with teams that aren't even as good as Messi's team..."
"Messi's won more league titles with that Barcelona team, but I just feel that the international goal record and the Champions Leagues, aligned with the variety of goals that he scores, even though they're very similar [in overall numbers], leads me to think that he is the greatest player of all time," Neville concluded.
Although some Ronaldo fans welcomed Neville's remarks, the Argentine's admirers not only blasted him for favouring the 36-year-old footballer, but filled his Twitter feed with nasty comments too.
The backlash was so intense that Neville had to backtrack from his statement as he tweeted: "You can choose Messi, you can also choose Ronaldo. Neither opinion can be seen as wrong due to them both achieving greatness and the comparisons in stats so similar."
But it was not just Messi's supporters, who confronted the former Red Devils skipper as he made the claim on a British sports network.
Ex-Liverpool star Jamie Carragher was extremely outspoken in voicing his opposition to Neville before choosing Messi over Ronaldo in the intense debate.
"No one's not a huge fan of Ronaldo or Messi, [but] Ronaldo's not the greatest player of all-time," Carragher stated. "I'm going to say that it's his mate here."
"You're talking about the difference of type of goals. It doesn't matter how the ball goes in the net. Messi's got a better goal record than Ronaldo. Messi can also run a game; Ronaldo cannot do that."
"Messi as a player can take you to a place where you can't actually believe what you're seeing. What Ronaldo does is things that other players can do. Messi can do things that you've never seen before."
Both Ronaldo and Messi will be in UEFA Champions League (UCL) action this week: CR7's Man Utd will take on Switzerland's Young Boys in the opening round of the tournament and the former Barca striker will make his UCL debut for PSG against Belgium's Brugge on Wednesday.