I said to him, ‘Basically I hated you as a kid’: Paulo Dybala on the Cristiano Ronaldo-Lionel Messi rivalry

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“One time we were on a plane to go play a game, I was at the back and he was sitting further forward. At one point he came to me to talk about football and other things. We used to discuss our lives in general and so I said to him ‘I basically hated you as a kid’,” he’d reveal.

To add context, Dybala didn’t have a choice. After all, he came from the land of one Lionel Messi, who had been pitted against the Portuguese forward in the late aughts. A rivalry that’d continue for more than a decade as the two reached scaled new heights.

“The rivalry between him and Messi is deeply felt in Argentina and as a child, of course, I was always on Messi’s side,” said Dybala, who completed a move to AS Roma earlier this season.

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Dybala was part of the Argentina squad led by Lionel Messi that beat France on penalties in the World Cup final to complete the 36-year-old drought since Diego Maradona and Co lifted the 1986 World Cup.

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While Messi won a third straight title with the national team following the 2021 Copa America and the 2022 Finalissima, Cristiano Ronaldo and Co were bested by Morocco in the quarterfinal in Qatar to end a campaign that saw Ronaldo being benched owing to disciplinary measures taken by the then Portuguese boss, Fernando Santos.