Both men have taken the sport to a new level with their record goalscoring feats -- Ronaldo has scored an astonishing 164 times in 160 appearances for the Spanish champions, while Messi hit 50 in La Liga alone last term.
But if they have any hope of emulating such feats -- or, more precisely, of deterring the Russians from threatening them in the first place by making it clear that they could emulate such feats -- today's Eastern Europeans have to do much more to prepare a robust defense.
The Citroen driver, who won the event for the fourth time last year, dominated the four-day race from the start to eclipse the feats of four-time victors Sandro Munari, Walter Rohrl and Tommi Makinen.