Why I Prefer Messi Over Ronaldo: Go Deeper and Create the Play

When people discuss football, one debate always comes up: Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?

Both are absolute legends of the game, but I have always preferred Messi. The reason comes down to how he plays when his team needs a breakthrough.

Cristiano Ronaldo is a master finisher—he waits in and around the penalty box, expecting the right pass, and scores with incredible precision. But Messi does something different. When the midfield is stuck and the passes aren’t flowing, Messi doesn’t just stand up front waiting for someone to feed him the ball.

He drops deep.

He walks right back into his own half, takes the ball from his defenders, becomes the architect of the play, and builds the attack himself. He creates the opportunity out of nothing instead of waiting for someone else to hand it to him.

And the numbers prove it:

• Creating from Deep: Messi has created over 450 big chances for teammates in his career (compared to Ronaldo’s 185) and completed 3,355 successful dribbles from deep midfield zones.
• Still Scoring: Even though he drops deep to control the game, Messi scores at a faster rate—averaging a goal every 104.2 minutes (vs Ronaldo’s 112.0), with 97 goals scored from outside the 18-yard box.

He doesn’t sacrifice his output by dropping deep; he controls the entire match and still finishes the play.

Why I Prefer Messi Over Ronaldo: Go Deeper and Create the Play

As technical consultants and architects working with existing customers, it is easy to fall into a “Ronaldo” pattern. We wait for the customer to bring us a clear scope, open a request, or ask a specific design question.

If they don’t ask, we assume everything is running fine and wait.

But the best consultants and architects operate like Messi:

• Go deeper with proactive conversations: Don’t wait for scheduled meetings or crisis calls. Reach out, have regular conversations, and understand how their teams are actually using the platform every day.
• Educate the customer: Teach them about new features, architectural patterns, and best practices they might not know about. When you educate a customer, you help them see what is possible.
• Tap into hidden use cases: By asking the right questions, you uncover unseen friction and operational bottlenecks. You help the customer discover new, valuable use cases that they hadn’t even considered.
• Improve efficiency & drive account growth: When you proactively solve these hidden challenges, you make the customer’s system run much faster and more efficiently. And naturally, as they see more value, the account grows organically.

Proactive Architecture Beats Reactive Consulting

In technical consulting, real value never comes from sitting back and waiting for an opportunity or a brief to land on your desk.

True impact happens when you step out of your routine, drop deep into the customer’s real world, engage with them, educate them, and create the next big solution together.

Don’t wait for the customer to hand you the pass. Go deep, start the conversation, tap those hidden use cases, and build the play yourself!