Great Sports Rivalries: Head-to-Head Ratings

Messi vs Ronaldo, Jordan vs LeBron, Federer vs Nadal and more. The greatest sports rivalries, rated head to head by experts and fans.

Football rivalries

• Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi – 9.39 to 9.38. Fifteen years of the same question: the artist who made it look effortless, or the athlete who refused to stop scoring?
• Lionel Messi vs Diego Maradona – 9.38 to 9.08. Two Argentines who each carried a nation. One was a force of nature, the other a decade-long masterclass.
• Pelé vs Diego Maradona – 9.15 to 9.08. Three World Cups against one he won almost alone. Football’s oldest argument is still not settled.
• Ronaldo Nazário vs Ronaldinho – 9.00 to 8.87. Two Brazilians, two peaks: raw, unstoppable power against pure joy with the ball.
• Andrés Iniesta vs Xavi Hernandez – 8.81 to 8.79. The engine room of the greatest club side of their generation. Who actually ran it?
• Luka Modrić vs Toni Kroos – 8.83 to 8.72. A decade in the same Madrid midfield, with very different ways of controlling a match.
• Kylian Mbappé vs Thierry Henry – 8.77 to 8.69. France’s two great attackers, twenty years apart: Henry’s grace and finishing against Mbappé’s raw speed.
• Manuel Neuer vs Gianluigi Buffon – 8.87 to 8.86. The goalkeeper who reinvented the position against the one who perfected it.
• Zinedine Zidane vs Andrea Pirlo – 9.03 to 8.64. Two playmakers who made the game look slow because they were the only ones who saw it early.
• Thierry Henry vs Dennis Bergkamp – 8.69 to 8.31. Arsenal’s double act. One was pace and finishing, the other touch and imagination.
• Johan Cruyff vs Franz Beckenbauer – 9.06 to 8.82. The 1974 World Cup final in one match-up: Total Football’s playmaker against the captain who lifted the trophy.
• Ferenc Puskás vs Alfredo Di Stéfano – 8.74 to 8.71. Two stars of the Real Madrid side that won five European Cups in a row. One ran everything, the other finished it.
• Pelé vs Eusébio – 9.15 to 8.70. The two biggest names of the 1960s: Brazil’s three-time World Cup winner against Benfica’s Black Panther.
• Diego Maradona vs Michel Platini – 9.08 to 8.71. Two playmakers who ruled Italy in the 1980s, one in Turin and one in Naples, in Serie A’s golden age.
• Pelé vs Garrincha – 9.15 to 8.60. The wing wizard and the complete forward who won the 1958 and 1962 World Cups together for Brazil.
• Marco van Basten vs Ruud Gullit – 8.77 to 8.64. Two Dutch stars of Milan’s great side of the late 1980s: the finisher and the all-rounder.
• Paolo Maldini vs Franco Baresi – 9.05 to 8.71. Two Milan captains who defended at the highest level for two decades. One set the standard, the other inherited it.
• Gianluigi Buffon vs Lev Yashin – 8.86 to 8.62. The only goalkeeper to win the Ballon d’Or against a World Cup winner who kept going into his forties.
• Zinedine Zidane vs Ronaldo Nazário – 9.03 to 9.00. Two Galácticos and the 1998 World Cup final: France’s playmaker against Brazil’s phenomenon.

Basketball rivalries

• Michael Jordan vs LeBron James – 9.46 to 9.45. A perfect peak against two decades of staying at the top. The question the NBA will never stop asking.
• LeBron James vs Kobe Bryant – 9.45 to 9.02. Obsession against all-round dominance: two different ways to build a legend.
• Larry Bird vs Magic Johnson – 8.99 to 8.94. The 1980s rivalry that pulled the NBA into the mainstream, decided finals and never lost its edge.
• Stephen Curry vs Kevin Durant – 9.11 to 8.59. The shooter who changed how the game is played against the scorer nobody could guard.
• Nikola Jokić vs Giannis Antetokounmpo – 8.94 to 8.60. The passing centre and the unstoppable forward: two MVPs with nothing in common except winning.
• Shaquille O'Neal vs Hakeem Olajuwon – 8.97 to 8.93. Pure force against pure footwork. Two of the greatest centres to ever play.
• Bill Russell vs Wilt Chamberlain – 8.94 to 8.88. Numbers against rings. The oldest statistics-versus-winning argument in basketball.
• Tim Duncan vs Kevin Garnett – 9.03 to 8.25. Two big men who defined the 2000s: one with calm precision, the other with fire.

Tennis rivalries

• Novak Djokovic vs Roger Federer – 9.61 to 9.42. Elegance against relentlessness. The numbers have moved, but the argument has not.
• Novak Djokovic vs Rafael Nadal – 9.61 to 9.48. The most played rivalry in tennis: the hard-court machine against the king of clay.
• Rafael Nadal vs Roger Federer – 9.48 to 9.42. Grace against grit, and the rivalry that gave tennis its biggest decade.
• Carlos Alcaraz vs Jannik Sinner – 8.63 to 8.18. The rivalry the next decade of tennis is being built on, and it is only getting started.
• Andre Agassi vs Pete Sampras – 8.47 to 8.47. The serve-and-volley champion against the best returner of his time. The 1990s in one match-up.
• Björn Borg vs John McEnroe – 8.50 to 8.19. Ice against fire. A rivalry that brought tennis into the living rooms of the whole world.

Counter-Strike rivalries

• s1mple vs ZywOo – 9.15 to 9.01. Two aim-first superstars who defined the modern game. Every top-player list has to pick one.
• ZywOo vs donk – 9.01 to 8.53. A teenage prodigy with a new style of play against an established superstar. The sport’s newest argument.
• s1mple vs NiKo – 9.15 to 8.68. Two of the best pure aimers the game has produced, with very different trophy cabinets.
• f0rest vs GeT_RiGhT – 8.53 to 8.52. Swedish teammates who defined the 1.6 era together. Which of them was really the best?