Sergio Aguero has made his thoughts clear in the Cristiano Ronaldo v Lionel Messi debate by commenting on a social media post from Alejandro Garnacho.
Garnacho enjoyed a big day in his budding career when he was involved in Manchester United’s match day squad for their Premier League game against Norwich on Saturday. The 17-year-old was included on the substitutes bench by interim manager Ralf Rangnick for the first time.
Although he did not get on the pitch in the 3-2 victory, the young winger has been earmarked for big things at Old Trafford. "He has been training with us the last two weeks and he is one of the most promising players," Rangnick said pre-match. "He is only 17, but if he keeps his feet on the ground, he will not only be sitting on the bench but will be playing for this club."
Garnacho got a front row seat to watch his hero Ronaldo score a brilliant hat-trick – the 60th of his career – to earn United the three points against the league’s bottom side. They were extremely valuable ones, too, given Tottenham and Arsenal both suffered 1-0 defeats to throw open the race for fourth place.
The youngster grew up idolising Ronaldo and even performed his trademark “SIUUU” celebration after scoring for United’s Under-18s in a 4-1 win over Everton in February. So he was particularly delighted to be given the match ball by Ronaldo at the end of the game.
He took to Instagram to commemorate the landmark day, posting a picture of himself alongside Ronaldo holding the ball the 37-year-old had given him. “Greatest of all times…” he wrote in the caption, alongside goat, fire, football and heart emojis.
Naturally the comments were filled with encouraging messages from his United academy team-mates, but amongst them was another from Aguero. Garnacho, who was born in Madrid and initially represented Spain’s underage sides, although he was recently called into Argentina’s senior squad where he got the chance to train with Messi – and it was this experience Aguero referred to in his comment.
“Porque todavía no jugaste con el mejor pa @leomessi,” the former Manchester City striker wrote in Spanish under Garnacho’s Ronaldo picture, which translates as “because you have not played with Lionel Messi yet”. Garnacho, who joined United from Atletico Madrid two years ago, is eligible for Argentina because of his Argentine mother and owes his recent call-up to Javier Mascherano , who is the country’s Under-20s coach.
“Since they were interested in me two or three months ago, they have always been very attentive, worrying about me,” he explained. "He [Mascherano] is very attentive, and I am very grateful. I have always dreamed of sharing a team with stars of this level, and of learning a lot from them. It is a dream to be able to share a team with some of the idols of my childhood, so I am going to take advantage of it to improve."
