I do not care for either team, but wanted to have France win so I did not have to hear all the garbage about Messi being the GOAT. He needed the World Cup win or he would have no claim to that title. Where has he played besides Spain in La Liga and France in League 1. Neither of which claim to be two of your tougher leagues. In both leagues you have one or two teams that dominate, the rest fight over the scraps. He has never played in Italy, Germany or England. Tougher leagues where he may not have fared so well. I don’t care for Ronaldo, but he played and won Championships in England, Spain and Italy. Yes Messi played in the Championship, but not while simultaneously playing in a tough league like the EPL. Messi scored a lot of goals in Spain, some in France and will probably move to the MLS and score more. But, I doubt he would have been as prolific had he risked a move to England.
I personally don’t care about best ever arguments. I think Christiano Ronaldo is better than Messi, but it’s meaningless.
Messi's parents brought him to Barcelona and their football academy when he was just a teenager. He really didn't have much choice there, and maybe it was the perfect match of player and team and philosophy. You certainly can't fault him for his performances in cup championships over the years. And if La Liga is weak that's not his fault. Is he the GOAT? The names Pele and Maradona come to mind (Maradona almost single-handedly made Napoli a power when he played there). And Renaldo has had a fantastic career too.
While France's Ligue 1 is basically a farmer's league, La Liga in Spain is definitely a top 2 or 3 league in the world. In Messi's prime, Spanish teams (Barcelona and Real Madrid) won 7 of 10 Champions League Finals (Messi winning four). La Liga is much tougher than the Bundesliga in Germany, where Bayern Munich mostly dominates minnows. I'd like to have seen him play in Italy (he is ethnically largely Italian), but La Liga is a top league.