Cristiano Ronaldo is world football’s LeBron James

Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is as special and also as complicated as Cleveland Cavaliers star and NBA all-time great LeBron James.

Being a superstar athlete who is a once-in-a-generation talent is difficult to comprehend for we mere mortals. These individuals possess unimaginable skills and physical superpowers. They’re worth literally hundreds of millions of dollars. They’re recognized wherever they go, and they are both praised and criticized by nameless and faceless people who, in the long run, mean nothing to them.

Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and Cleveland Cavaliers hero LeBron James are not only contemporaries. They’re sports icons of similar ages who are both currently staring at life-altering decisions that will impact them away from pitches and basketball courts. Granted, James has never become entangled in a legal matter such as the alleged tax problem hovering over Ronaldo, but the two are otherwise alike in stature, greatness and even personality.

Ronaldo and James are both 32 years old. Both have won the top club championships and highest personal honors available to them. Both are at the legacy-building stages of historic careers. Both remain in tremendous physical condition even though there have been signs, over the past couple of years, that age and Father Time are slowly creeping up on them.

Both are extremely charitable without talking about it all that much. Ronaldo has reportedly paid medical bills for children, helped fund hospitals and donated massive sums of money to non-profit organizations. James, meanwhile, is the most important athlete to ever grace northeast Ohio, and his contributions to the region and to Akron, specifically, are indescribable and too many to mention in a single paragraph.

Both are chasing ghosts and statuses they’ll never catch. In the eyes of many, Ronaldo will never be as great or as special as Lionel Messi regardless of how many trophies or awards he adds to an already stacked case. For James, he knows he’ll never match the perfect NBA Finals record had by Michael Jordan, a factoid many take pleasure in addressing whenever the two are compared in a discussion about legends of the game.

Both required “help” to take figurative steps towards greatness. While Ronaldo won the Champions League with Manchester United, his best days at Real came only after the likes of Luka Modric and Gareth Bale joined him at the Bernabeu. James had to produce a super team with the Miami Heat to win his first NBA title, and he then put the finishing pieces on a similar unit in Cleveland.

Both are divas as it pertains to competition. Rumors of Ronaldo feeling unsettled or unhappy at Real are nothing new, which is why some originally brushed off reports he was allegedly looking to leave Spain for a return to United. He has clashed with teammates during matches and behind the scenes, and he has even been accused of asking for goals scored by fellow Real players to be disallowed in certain situations:

Fair or not, James has a reputation for being a “coach-killer” responsible for the Cavaliers firing David Blatt roughly half a year after he guided a Cleveland side to an NBA Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors, a defeat that occurred largely because both Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving were sidelined by injuries. Fans and critics lash out at James whenever he complains to officials during games. Like Ronaldo, James has been accused of diving or flopping and also generating disharmony in locker rooms throughout his career.

Both will do what’s best for them under the guise of sentimentality. Do United hold a special spot in Ronaldo’s heart? Probably, but it also likely doesn’t hurt United have the funds needed to build upon the squad that won the Europa League this past spring. United may have struggled in league play last campaign, but it’s not as if they finished near the relegation zone. In short, Ronaldo wouldn’t be joining a lengthy rebuilding process if he returned to Old Trafford this summer.

James penned a love letter to Cleveland upon the start of his second stint with the Cavaliers in the summer of 2014, which it makes it easy to forget the Cavs provided him with the best opportunity to win a third title the fastest. The previously mentioned Irving was already with the club, and Cleveland had the needed assets to acquire Love and make the needed signings to topple the Warriors in June 2016.

Assuming James makes a move out west to join either the Los Angeles Lakers or Los Angeles Clippers, he’ll probably explain he merely wants to team up with certain friends or experience life in sunny California. In reality, he’ll be chasing rings and also non-basketball related business endeavors. Think of that whatever you will.

Last but not least, both men seemingly love drama. Ronaldo could call a press conference just about anywhere in the world to announce his true intentions about his future. James, an active social-media user, could erase any doubts about whether or not he plans on retiring as a member of the Cavs in under 140 characters. Both will choose to remain secretive as long as possible.

It’s easy to forget larger-than-life figures such as Ronaldo and James are people just like us. They’re complicated beings impacted by emotions and desires. Ronaldo, like James, has earned the right to finish his career where and how he wishes, but both men should realize they work in a business where customers spend their money and time because of emotional attachments to teams and athletes.

Those attachments and the responses they create are why some will forever view Ronaldo and James as villains rather than as two of the most successful athletes of the first part of the century. Neither man can escape that reality, which makes the closing chapters of their careers all the more interesting.

• Published on 06/24/2017 at 10:05 AM EST
• Last updated on 06/24/2017 at 9:21 AM EST