Real Madrid weaker without Ronaldo — Messi

MADRID — Real Madrid is a worse team after Cristiano Ronaldo's departure to Juventus in the close season, according to Barcelona captain Lionel Messi.

Messi and Ronaldo battled against each other in La Liga for nine years with their respective sides but the Portuguese forward left for Serie A in July.

Real Madrid and Barcelona have won their opening three matches and are joint top of the table on nine points.

"Real Madrid is one of the best teams in the world with a great squad (but) it's evident that the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo makes it less good and makes Juventus (one of the) clear favorites to win the Champions League," Messi told Catalunya Radio in a show broadcast Monday.

"It surprised me. I didn't imagine him leaving Madrid or joining Juventus. There were a lot of teams that wanted him. It surprised me but he went to a very good team."

In early August Messi gave a speech in which he said Barca wanted to win the Champions League this year after the disappointment of being knocked out by AS Roma in the quarterfinals last season.

The No. 10 reaffirmed his desire to win the trophy Barcelona last lifted in 2015.

"It's time. We have had three years in a row being knocked out of the Champions League and are hurt further still from last season's result in Rome," added Messi.

"We have a spectacular squad and we can fight for it. We lost chances to win it in the (Pep) Guardiola era against Inter (Milan) and Chelsea. We were better than them and we could not get to the final because of small details."

Ronaldo's move was the latest example of increasingly lavish spending by Europe's biggest clubs, with Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Philippe Coutinho and Paul Pogba all snapped up for more than 100 million euros over the past two years.

Messi believes the lure of Barcelona and Real Madrid is now being neutralized by the mouth-watering sums on offer.

"There are clubs now with a lot of money and players move for that reason," he said.

"Wherever the most money is, that's where they end up going. Things have changed and now the owners of clubs are multi-millionaires.

"Before, everyone wanted to play for Barca or Madrid, who were the best, but now everything's tighter and there's not much of a difference between the teams in Manchester, PSG, Madrid, us, Bayern (Munich) and the Italian (teams)." — Agencies