Lionel Messi v Cristiano Ronaldo: Paolo Di Canio's brutal verdict on why he prefers CR7

One of the biggest debates in football is who is better, between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and everyone involved in the game has their favourite.

Most prefer one of the incredibly talented individuals more than the other due to their play style or statistics, but this isn’t the case for Paolo Di Canio.

The former West Ham forward and Italian international has given his thoughts on the debate, and his verdict is pretty brutal.

For a bit of back story, Lionel Messi was booed off the pitch by PSG fans on Sunday as the French side faced Bordeaux.

This came after PSG were dumped out of the Champions League by Real Madrid on Wednesday night, despite walking into the second leg with a 1-0 lead on aggregate.

Messi didn’t seem particularly phased by the negative reaction, and while some may use this to show his strength, Di Canio wasn’t impressed in the slightest.

Speaking to Sky Italia, the 53-year-old compared Lionel Messi to an “alien without emotions”, noting that Ronaldo is more like “a human with a soul”, which he prefers.

“Messi left the pitch scratching his head and emotionless. I prefer Cristiano Ronaldo. Do you want me to be on the bench against Manchester City? So I go to Portugal, then I come back and score a hat trick.”

I’d rather a human with a soul than an alien without emotions. Messi showed the limitations of his personality. 

“Of course it can be whistled. Thousands of supporters were waiting for him, dreaming of him, but his behavior has not been correct.”

Lionel Messi wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of Di Canio’s criticism, with the former Sunderland manager saying that Neymar was “even worse.”

Neymar is even worse. He hasn’t been doing anything special and last month he said he wanted to go