Doyle: At the Copa America Messi vaults ahead of Ronaldo in everything

Last Saturday night, Cristiano Ronaldo showed up in Paris to play for Portugal in a 0-0 draw with Austria. He smiled his trashy Hollywood smile, grinned ironically, rolled his eyes, complained, ran and ran, missed a penalty kick and failed to score from several solid chances.

Making his 128th appearance for his country, he surpassed the record set by the great Luis Figo. But the match, like many at Euro 2016, was weirdly anticlimactic, a stuttering frustration of a game.

Some hours later, when it was Saturday night in decidedly unglamorous Foxborough, Mass., Lionel Messi showed up to play for Argentina in the quarter-final match of the Copa America against Venezuela. He scored once and assisted on two other goals in a 4-1 win. He didn't complain ostentatiously when tackled and roughhoused. He smiled ruefully, shrugged and just kept going.

With the goal, his 54th for Argentina, he equalled the number scored by the great Gabriel Batistuta for the country. While the win was decisive, it was a match of such sublime speed, skill and lust for scoring that one didn't want it to end.

Well, that settles it – we are at chapter 1,292 (approximately) of the eternal debate about whether Messi or Ronaldo is the best player in the world today, and Messi has leapt ahead and won.

It won't settle anything in reality, one supposes. Nobody in Europe is paying much attention to the Copa, and nobody at the Copa gives a rodent's posterior about Euro 2016.

But it should settle it. If there is a finishing line that must be crossed first by one of these colourfully divergent players, it is surely about devotion to country and teamwork. While the stats – goals scored, trophies won – are quantifiable and tangible, the matter that settles it best is intangible.

Ronaldo is on the wane. My colleague Cathal Kelly captured the situation succinctly: All that talent and achievement and so much to dislike. The Guardian simply referred to him sarcastically as "le grand fromage" of Euro 2016.

Messi has showed up the most – and that's what matters. He could have skipped this Copa, and there would have been few hard feelings. His colleague at Barcelona, Brazilian striker Neymar, reached an agreement that he would play for Brazil at the Rio Olympics but skip the Copa. Messi could have dodged it, too. It could have been rationalized: a long season in Europe, some niggling injuries, save the energy for Argentina's next run at the World Cup – those sorts of excuses.

But Messi has committed, and his influence has been crucial. As a team player, not a superstar. In the sometimes toxic arguments over the rivalry between Messi and Ronaldo, a lazy assumption is made that Messi is shy and unassuming while Ronaldo is stark raving mad with arrogance. Not so, obviously. Listen to insiders instead of pundits and you will know that Messi has immense and emphatic influence over Argentina these days. He pulls the strings. Not just in midfield, when he chooses, but over the entire team and its tactics. He's the de facto manager. And, it turns out, he's rather good at it.

Nobody is quite sure why this Copa America exists, apart from being a party for the tournament's 100th anniversary. It was born out of the scandals that rocked FIFA last year – the United States wanting to clean it up – and is a bit shambolic. The venues are distant and awkward for team travel. It was silly to invite so many minnow teams from the Caribbean to play. One night, when Uruguay was about to play Mexico, the Chilean national anthem was played in the opening ceremony. A shambles. But the players shrugged and played their best.

That's what elevates Messi – the determination to see out the tournament for his country, contibute and, in doing so, elevate everything around him. Against Venezuela – a tough opposition, a team bizarrely risen to greatness as the country itself disintegrates – he played shrewdly, part of a three-man attack. He drew the defenders toward him and passed the ball artfully, with judicious attention to the space he claimed and where others might prosper. It was superficially unassuming but overwhelmingly cunning. What influence he had he used to empower others, not just himself.

Messi is now utterly committed. He could have done without a furiously paced game in Foxborough on Saturday night and another in Houston in the semi-final on Tuesday. That one is against the United States, a team motivated to defeat the cream of South American talent on home soil. It's a slog, but Messi heightens everything one step at a time, knowing it's not about him, it's about Argentina and the roar from the barrios of Buenos Aires, his hometown of Rosario and the countless towns beyond. About the intangible, the ethereal, the country and the team.

In the other quarter-final match on Saturday, Chile demolished Mexico 7-0. The score looks lopsided, and it is, but it stands as a measure of the sheer carnality of the scoring at this strange tournament. Chile now plays Colombia in a semi-final on Wednesday. An Argentina-versus-Colombia final is in the cards, and Lionel Messi will show up, not for himself but for what matters more. And he's won already.