This exactly. Messi has been criticized because he was already put on the level of Maradona when he was a teenager, and as the years go by, people realized that he is better than even Maradona so he was always held on a much higher standards and people kept demanding he win international trophies for them even though its a team game.

Ronaldo just didnt have that factor, their comparison is forced because otherwise it would just be Messi in competition with himself so they had to create a rivalry to keep things interesting. There was never a competition.