外刊听读| 经济学人 梅西与C罗

Sporting rivalries

体育较量

Clash of the titans

巨头之间的交锋

Messi vs Ronaldo. By Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg.

《梅西与罗纳尔多》——约书亚-罗宾逊，乔纳森-克莱格

 

1 WINNING THE Ballon d’Or, an award given to the best male footballer in the world, is considered one of the crowning glories of a player’s career. Only a handful of athletes have won the prize twice; Marco van Basten, Johan Cruyff and Michel Platini each prevailed three times. For a decade, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo turned the Ballon d’Or into a duopoly. Between 2008—when Mr Ronaldo first won the award—and 2017, the pair claimed every Ballon d’Or between them.

 

"金球奖"（Ballon d'Or），代表世界上最优秀的男性足球运动员奖项，被认为是球员职业生涯中最高荣耀之一。只有少数几位运动员获得过两次金球奖；马尔科·范巴斯滕、约翰·克鲁伊夫，米歇尔·普拉蒂尼获得过三次。十年来，梅西和克里斯蒂亚诺-罗纳尔多将金球奖变成了一个双头垄断。从2008年罗纳尔多先生首次获奖到2017年，他们两人夺得了所有的金球奖。

 

2 Never have the highest reaches of football been dominated by the same two men for so long. In “Messi vs Ronaldo”, Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg, two journalists at the Wall Street Journal, attempt to understand how they have done it. Talent is part of the story. Both players combine relentless scoring—they are the all-time top goalscorers in La Liga, Spain’s top division, and the Champions League, the leading European club competition—with brilliant passing. At their best, they function both as their side’s main creator of goals and the main scorer of them.

 

足球界的最高奖项从未被同样的两个人统治如此之久。在《梅西与罗纳尔多》中，《华尔街日报》的两位记者——约书亚-罗宾逊和乔纳森-克莱格试图弄明白他们是如何做到的。天赋是传奇的一部分。两位球员都将不停的进球与出色的传球相结合，--他们是西甲（西班牙顶级联赛）和欧洲一流俱乐部比赛--欧洲冠军联赛的历史最佳射手。在最佳状态下，他们既是球队得分的主要组织者，也是球队的主要射手。

 

3 The pair’s influence also reflects globalisation, modern technology and football’s growing clout. When Mr Messi played for Barcelona, he had a say in transfers and even managerial appointments. His sway was such that, when a club employee argued that Mr Messi “would not be as good” without the help of his team-mates, the staff member was quickly dismissed “for having publicly expressed a personal opinion that does not match that of the club”. Mr Messi’s salary—€555m ($577m) over his last four years—almost bankrupted Barcelona. When Mr Ronaldo moved from Real Madrid to Juventus in 2018, his new club gained a vast number of social-media followers while his old one lost hundreds of thousands. Traditionally, fandom means following a particular team regardless of its squad; for many in the age of Mr Messi and Mr Ronaldo, it has become about following players instead.

 

这对组合的影响力也反映了全球化、现代技术和足球日益增长的影响力。当梅西先生为巴萨效力时，他在转会甚至是管理层任命上都有发言权。他的影响力是如此之大，以至于当俱乐部的一名员工认为，如果没有队友的帮助，梅西先生 "不会那么出色 "时，这名员工很快就被解雇了，理由是"因为他公开表达的个人观点与俱乐部观点并不一致"。梅西先生的工资--四年5.55亿欧元（5.77亿美元）--几乎让巴塞罗那破产。2018年，当罗纳尔多先生从皇家马德里转会到尤文图斯时，他的新俱乐部获得了大量的社交媒体粉丝，而前俱乐部则失去了数十万的粉丝。传统意义上，球迷意味着追随某支球队，无论其阵容如何；对于梅罗时代的许多人来说，球迷意味着追随这名球员。

 

4 From 2009 to 2018, when both men played for Spanish teams, every clash doubled up as a referendum on which man was the superior star. If Mr Messi—for his grace in playing the game and sense of play—was football’s Roger Federer, then Mr Ronaldo was its Rafael Nadal: less artistic, more physical, his career a triumph of sheer bloody-mindedness. Mr Messi has eschewed publicity and Mr Ronaldo has embraced it. (See the recent interview in which he criticised his current club, Manchester United.) But the authors argue that such contrasts overlook the players’ “mutual understanding”: “that their most important business partner is the other”. If there is no friendship between the two, neither is there real animosity.

 

从2009年到2018年，当两人都为西班牙联赛效力时，每一次交锋都是一场两人孰弱孰强的公投。如果说梅西先生是足球界的罗杰·费德勒，那么罗纳尔多就是足球界的拉菲尔·纳达尔：后者缺乏观赏性，而更注重身体，罗纳尔多职业生涯是纯粹的独行侠式胜利。梅西先生避开了媒体报道，而罗纳尔多先生则接纳了它。(最近的采访中，他批评了如今所在的俱乐部--曼联）。但作者认为，这种对比忽略了球员之间的 "惺惺相惜"。"他们最重要的商业伙伴是对方"。如果两人之间没有友谊，那么也没有真正的敌意。

 

5 There has been a dark side to their sporting excellence. Both players allowed themselves to be courted by intolerant regimes—the United Arab Emirates in Mr Ronaldo’s case and Saudi Arabia in Mr Messi’s. They have largely kept politics and sport separate, in the manner of the quip uttered by Michael Jordan, a basketball player: “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” Both had to repay millions to the Spanish tax authorities. Mr Ronaldo has been accused of sexual assault. (He denies the allegations and has never been charged.)

 

他们在运动方面的卓越表现也有其黑暗的一面。两位球员都允许自己被不容异说的政权所讨好--罗纳尔多先生对应着阿拉伯联合酋长国，梅西先生则是沙特阿拉伯。他们在很大程度上将政治和体育分开，就像篮球运动员迈克尔-乔丹（Michael Jordan）所调侃的一样。"共和党人也买运动鞋"。两人都不得不向西班牙税务部门偿还数百万美元。罗纳尔多先生也曾被指控性侵犯。(他否认了这些指控，也从未被起诉）

 

6 Coverage of such matters ensures that this rigorously researched book avoids becoming hagiography. The result is an ambitious and valuable study for all those who want to understand the modern world of football that Mr Messi and Mr Ronaldo have helped forge. Yet the authors might have examined the endurance of these star athletes in greater depth.

 

对这些问题的报道确保了这本经过严格研究的书没有成为吹捧性传记，对于所有想要了解梅西和罗纳尔多如何帮助打造了现代足球的人来说，这本书的结果是一项费时费力且有价值的研究。然而，作者本可以更深入地研究这些明星运动员长盛不衰的原因。

 

7 Aged 35 and 37, Mr Messi and Mr Ronaldo, albeit a little diminished, continue to play on, apparently motivated less by what they can achieve at their clubs than on the international stage, for Argentina and Portugal. Both have won one major international tournament. The weeks ahead offer the tantalising possibility that one of the pair might win the prize both covet most: the World Cup.

 

35岁的梅西和37岁的罗纳尔多，尽管状态有所下滑，但仍在继续比赛，显然他们坚持的动力不是在俱乐部取得成绩，而是在国际舞台上，为了阿根廷和葡萄牙。两人都赢得了一项重要的国际比赛。未来几周，这两人中的一个可能会赢得他们最梦寐以求的奖项：世界杯。