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10th September 2016
11:15pm BST
"Ronaldo is a player of his time," Xavi recently told Cadena SER. "The problem is that there is another who has been pretty much the best player in history.
"Ronaldo is extraordinary but compared to Messi, for me and for everyone who likes football, there are no comparisons."
One would expect such Messi favouritism from a former teammate but Ronaldo wasn't about to sit idly by and have his acknowledgements belittled and, after Saturday's win over Osasuna, he hit back at the Spanish midfielder.
"The most searched for player on the Internet is me," Ronaldo told reporters, as quoted in the Daily Mail. "Those that want to appear on front covers [of newspapers] or promote things speak about me.
"What does it matter to me what Xavi says? He plays where? In Qatar or [somewhere], I don't know.
"He's won everything but he's never won a Ballon d'Or. I have three."
And eager to hammer the point home, Ronaldo gave some advice to Real president Florentino Perez.
"If I were the president of Real Madrid, I would give myself a 10-year contract," Ronaldo added. "Right now I'm not thinking about anything else in my career, all I want is to retire at Real.
"This is the biggest club in the world and it should have the best players."
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