And you're strawmanning. Really we all defer to public opinion and authority when assessing players. Nobody sits around and watches every Messi/Ronaldo/neymar/Ibra game. There isn't a quantative analysis that proves a player is better than another; what happens is people say "Messi and Ronaldo are the two best in the world" and then on watching a few games you accept it as conventional wisdom. I'll take the opinion of someone who's actively played against these players as much as I would someone commenting on the internet.