When I was the editor of a weekly, Sporting Events, over two decades ago, there was something the paper did at a point in time that ignited both excitement and revulsion.
It was the arguably controversial debate it started for fans to determine who of the two finest players at the time – Joe Debrah and the late Shamo Quaye – stood taller in terms of performance and admiration.
The “Who is who: Shamo Quaye or Joe Debrah?” debate, without a doubt, fired the imagination of readers as every day saw us being overwhelmed by mails from across the length and breadth of the country.
The interest generated reached a level where some people genuinely felt the debate should be discontinued because of the risk of it being counter-productive, especially against the background that it could always put the two players on edge.
From our own checks, it was clear that Joe Debrah and Shamo Quaye who were the best of friends, in spite of the Hearts of Oak–Asante Kotoko eternal rivalry, were not affected by it. If anything, they drew some amount of encouragement from it.
Up to this day when people meet me and talk of how much they enjoyed the Shamo Quaye vs. Joe Debrah debate, I find it reassuring that the paper wasn't on a mission to destroy great national talents just to boost its print run.
Depending on how a newspaper decides to go about such a debate, financial benefit can't be cited as the sole reason behind it.
I've chosen to write about this today because of how two super players – Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo – have for years on end set world football on fire by their out of-this-world performance for their clubs in the Spanish La Liga.
Messi for Barcelona and Ronaldo for Real Madrid have never been found lacking in the sprinkling of the kind of magic that makes football the most followed and the most passion-filled game.
No media network in Europe has openly declared a debate in relation to who is better of the two, but it is a fact that is what fans throughout the world engage in anytime they watch Messi and Ronaldo in action week in week out.
What we did on a very small scale at the local level in respect of Shamo Quaye and Joe Debrah in the early 90s, fans without boundaries are doing it at the highest level of the game for two players whose cult status knows no ending.
Only time will tell what the little Argentine magician and Portuguese wonder worker are going to unleash on the world in the next three years.
The two may be poles apart in so many respects, but that is not stopping the world from showering them with the deserved plaudits.
C-Ro, as Ronaldo is affectionately called by his admirers, is seen by many as being full of himself, never letting a chance slip for the world to know that he is the monarch of all that he surveys.
Messi on the other hand never ceases to amaze the world by his unusual humility in spite of the strong belief that he is the best in the world now.
Let the Messi–Ronaldo who is who (?) debate go on for so long as no heads are going to be broken. It will only add to the game's ever-growing popularity.
