{"id":273881,"date":"2018-10-31T09:04:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T13:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=273881"},"modified":"2018-10-31T09:04:15","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T13:04:15","slug":"gabriel-batistuta-messi-over-ronaldo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2018\/10\/31\/gabriel-batistuta-messi-over-ronaldo\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabriel Batistuta: Messi Over Ronaldo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gabriel Batistuta is one of the most iconic names in football history. Arguably the best player in Fiorentina history, he also played with Roma and Inter. The striker scored 278 career goals in Italy, including 203 for the Florence side. The Argentine was at an event in Italy to promote his newly released film,\u00a0\u2018The Number 9\u2019. While he was there, the 49-year-old was asked multiple football-related questions. The current Colon sporting director started off speaking about Icardi and Higuain.<\/p>\n<h1>Gabriel Batistuta: Messi Over Ronaldo<\/h1>\n<p>\u201cFor Argentina, it\u2019s a battle between Icardi and Higuain,\u201d Batistuta claimed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMauro has more chance because he\u2019s young. I like him a lot, you don\u2019t see him much in the match but he always scores.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInter fans must be happy to have him on their team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Serie A winner was then asked about the Messi against Ronaldo debate and who he would pick.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I could I\u2019d have both! If I have to choose, I pick Messi. Just because he\u2019s Argentine!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeriously though, Cristiano is really strong but they\u2019re different. Messi is more involved in the play. It\u2019s hard to compare them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRonaldo has a different personality and mentality, people like him will never stop. He\u2019ll want to score for as long as he can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Batistuta was then asked about Maradona, who today turns 58-years-old.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t get to play with him much. I don\u2019t know if I came too late or he came too soon, but I cherish the games I did play with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had beautiful experiences and negative ones like the 1994 World Cup [where Maradona failed a drug test].<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor we Argentines Diego is football. I don\u2019t always agree with his opinions, but I appreciate him as a player and a person because I know where he came from.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Batistuta will forever be remembered as one of the best. He changed the striker position, many players can learn from such an established player.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"f1Y_-8qRQzJw58hPJARxwg\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/631478876\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'f1Y_-8qRQzJw58hPJARxwg',sig:'u3gyX6KiGVn_mdy51vqN4IGYcgDgAJGM_0PFx--Lcvo=',w:'594px',h:'366px',items:'631478876',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gabriel Batistuta is one of the most iconic names in football history. Arguably the best player in Fiorentina history, he also played with Roma and Inter. The striker scored 278 career goals in Italy, including 203 for the Florence side. The Argentine was at an event in Italy to promote his newly released film,\u00a0\u2018The Number [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2787,"featured_media":274658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,30],"tags":[979,997,369,1017,111,1000,674,41,998],"class_list":["post-273881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-serie-a","category-la-liga","category-news","tag-argentina","tag-as-roma","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-diego-maradona","tag-fiorentina","tag-gonzalo-higuain","tag-inter-milan","tag-lionel-messi","tag-mauro-icardi"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2787"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}