Messi one of the best ever: Wayne Rooney

New Delhi: Wayne Rooney has laughed off comparisons between him and Lionel Messi and thinks that the Argentinian has a few more tricks up his sleeve that makes him one of the best players ever.

Terry Venables said that the duo were similar when playing wide on the left up front, but the Manchester United forward does not agree and explained why.“

I don’t think I’ve quite got his trickery but Messi is one of my favourite players and one of the best ever," the Daily Star quote him as saying.

Rooney and Messi will be on opposite sides of the ball in the Champions League final in three weeks' time and 'Wazza' is delighted about getting the chance to defend their title in Rome.

“It would be amazing and, hopefully, we can do it. We set out at the start of the ¬season to retain the title and be the first team to do it. We’re so close now to doing that. To be honest, I don’t really think about these things that much," he continued.

“You have to take each season as it comes.

"It’s only when people actually talk to you about doing it that you realise what an achievement it would be.

“I think the team is a lot better than when I first joined when I was 18, Cristiano Ronaldo was 19, Darren Fletcher was 20.

“We had a lot of young players but over the last few years we’ve got the experience that’s helped the team to progress.

“When Roman Abramovich went to Chelsea and all of that money was pumped into them and they won the two league titles, it looked hard to beat them.

“But fortunately we stopped them from winning the league for a third year running and we have really kicked on as a club.

“Look at the bench we had at ¬Arsenal. We had the likes of Ryan Giggs, Scholesy[Paul Scholes], Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov. Unbelievable.”

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