I don't deny that they're the best players of my lifetime and maybe the best that have ever played so far, but I just can't consider either a 'GOAT.'
Someone with Ronaldo's dribbling, control, and playmaking can't be a GOAT and someone always walking with as little effort as Messi and with so many big game disappointments can't be a GOAT either.
yeah, you're clearly talking about today's versions of those players. show me a footage of your so called "GOAT's" playing at age 34 like Ronaldo does? and discriminating Ronaldo's playmaking and dribbling, there's a big dilemma on it; he can play as a LW and get past the players even at 34, he did it this season and managed to crab couple assists here and there, but why on earth he would spend his time in there when he should be finishing in the box? he's so good at the box, he's so good at heading the ball that there's not any reason to play him anywhere else on the pitch, even he would clearly be capable of doing so. Messi in other hand has limited physique, so he has no reason to patrol around the box before the ball is close to that area, therefore he's little bit more involved on the build up, but he will always be the guy with closest the goal when that whole ball posession attack needs to be finished.
you said your lifetime, which means you ain't very old, which means you have very limited views of seeing this game as a game. instead, you're just cherry picking some of those "qualities" from these 2 GOATS at the end of their careers, which is always misleading because people tend to forget how good they actually were when they were at their prime. there's absolutely nobody coming close to these two and the biggest arguement you have is the nostalgic aspect of ranking all time greats, where most of the people who are born in the 70s will always say it's maradona, no matter how many goals some of the current generation players scored or how many trophies they won, you won't change it.
if you're here to argue, atleast give some proper reasoning behind because without a reason, your arguement is invalid.