Cristiano Ronaldo’s sister, Elma Aveiro, has mocked her brother’s chief rival Lionel Messi on Instagram after Ronaldo scored twice from the penalty spot as his Juventus side cruised to a 3-0 win over Messi’s Barcelona this week.
Ronaldo heaped further pressure on Ronald Koeman’s misfiring Barcelona, routing the Catalans 3-0 in the Camp Nou in Champion League action – and despite Ronaldo himself insisting that his rivalry with Messi has been overblown by the media, his sister couldn’t resist a dig at the Argentine star by posting an image to Instagram showing Messi ‘worshipping’ her brother.
Soon after the game, Averio posted the graphic to her social media profile with the caption: “My King! Best ever. Pride of my life.“
The image has been ‘liked’ on Instagram well over 40,000 times since it was published to her audience of 436,000 followers.
However, contrary to Aveiro’s claims, Ronaldo said this week that he “never saw Messi as a rival” despite the two global icons duelling for individual honors in the sport for much of the past 15 years.
“He always tried the best for his team, and I tried the best for mine,” Ronaldo announced. “I always got on well with him. I am sure he will say the same if you ask him.
“But we know in football, people always look for a rivalry to create more excitement.”
These are unusually magnanimous words from Ronaldo who currently leads Messi in their career goalscoring stakes – but Barcelona diminutive number 10 still leads the way in the Ballon d’Or tally with six gongs to Ronaldo’s five.
Messi and Barcelona managed to emerge from their Champions League group despite the heavy home defeat to the bianconeri, but their second-placed finish potentially sets up a knockout stage tie with Bayern Munich – just months after the German champions dispatched Barca 8-2 in last season’s competition.
The manner of the defeat led to a period of extreme internal rancor at the La Liga club, costing former boss Quique Setien his job and reportedly being among the chief reasons Messi attempted to engineer a move away from Barcelona in August.
And if Ronaldo has played a part in that specific type of lightning striking twice, it is clear that he still holds some type of influence over Messi’s present and future – regardless of what he says to the media.
