The great players of all time perform at a high level for club and elevate that play for country. Pele and Maradona did it multiple times. Sorry fans of Messi and Ronaldo. Those guys have not raised the level of their national teams on a world stage. Messi has zero copa America titles and Ronaldo has 1 Euro cup and they have combined for zero World Cup titles.
Now if one of them leads their team to titles now and at the World Cup next year, they put themselves in that conversation very convincingly