Messi and Cristiano are still one step below Zidane

Football also talks about the fantastic four: Pelé, Di Stéfano, Cruyff and Maradona. But perhaps one should speak of the big seven: Charlton, Müller, Beckenbauer, Rossi, Kaka, Ronaldinho and Zidane. They are the only seven players in history who have won the World Cup, the Champions League and the Ballon d'Or. Messi and Cristiano, serial winners of all individual trophies and club competitions, they do not reach this level because they could not conquer a World Cup with their respective selections. Only those mentioned can boast of having the highest title at the level of national teams (World Cup), clubs (Champions) and (Ballon d'Or).

But no one doubts that this virtual classification of the best in history does not do justice to the soccer that the Argentine displays and to the results that the Portuguese offers. Since Messi and Cristiano are missing, there are other great stars that were left out of the classification. Also striking is the absence of Ronaldo Nazario and Rivaldo. Both, who conquered the Ballon d'Or and the World Cup, they couldn't win the Champions. Ronaldo stayed at the gates with Real Madrid, and Rivaldo terminated his contract with Milan in 2003, the year the Lombard club took the European Cup. In this group we could also miss Paolo Maldini, that he was only 45 minutes away from matching the six Gento European Cups, another historic that would resist on any list. But the truth is that in the classification of those who have won the World Cup, Champions and Ballon d'Or there are only the seven mentioned.

With two of the three great titles, the list of players is already almost endless. Among the defenders, the cases of Sergio Ramos and Cannavaro. The Real Madrid captain has two of the three great titles, the collectives at the national team and club level: the World Cup and the Champions League. But he lacks the Ballon d'Or, a trophy traditionally vetoed by defenders. The exception was Cannavaro, who won it in 2006 thanks to the World Cup in Italy. But the Neapolitan central defender never raised the Champions League.

Then there are the players that many think, due to the great memory that their football or their goals left, that they should be (beyond Messi and Cristiano), but that they lack one of the three wound ones. Van Basten, three times Ballon d'Or, like Platini, could never win the World Cup with the Netherlands. Rummenigge, with two Golden Balls and won almost everything that can be won, lost the 1986 World Cup final against Argentina of Maradona, who could never lift a Champions League.

For this reason, although the titles or the goals are the only yardstick that soccer players have, although the race to accumulate the Golden Ballons by Messi and Cristiano has brought some of the best moments in the recent history of soccer, possibly not being an unfair unit of measure, it is not fair either. It is not because soccer players like Xavi and Iniesta are left out. “I do not win Ballons d'Or, but I manufacture them”, concluded Xavi Hernández very wisely and very rightly. “One of my worst moments in my eight years as a coach was when I had to vote for the Ballon d'Or every year, because soccer is a sport in which everyone wins and loses, it is collective for good and bad.” And he says it Forest, who as a coach is at the top of the pyramid: Champion of the World Cup, the Champions League and the title for Best FIFA Technician.