I can only speak for myself, but some variety would be nice. If Messi and Ronaldo are going to continue to share the award between them, then I don't mind reading about it here and ignoring everything else about the award ceremony. It's not interesting, unless you're a hardcore fan of either of them.

When modric won it with just 4 goals nobody even cared. Nobody said Messi scored 51 goals and made 26 assists. He was actually 5th in final standing.
Now everyone is crying. because Lewa scored the most goals. His 71 goals+assists is worse than Messi's 77 g+a in 2018 and messi was 5th in final standing. All other things were equal, both won their liga, both won CL top scorer and Golden shoe awards. Plus messi's goals were way better and he actually does dribblings and passes which is better than staying in the box. But nobody cared

Now this time crying is because its the first time a player other than Messi/ronaldo reaches 60+ stats?

Imagine Modric wins Euro with his national team and scores 43 goals+17 assists, wins pichichi and copa del rey. I'm 100 percent sure people who is crying now would cheer for him.and everyone would be happy if he won it

Generally speaking attacking n flair players are better than say defenders though right? Even as kids or teenager the better players mostly would be the attackers instead of playing to be the defenders. Its just nature of the game, it requires less skills overall to be a defending than an attacking player. Hence this award n any other similar kind naturally means attacking type of players win it most of the time.

The Best Striker award clearly is just a consolation for Lewand this yr. Everyone can see it would be stupid at any other yr with this but not best MF/D award. They improvise n change things yr by yr if need

The last two posts made my brain hurt.

Wow. Just wow...

No one is crying. Everyone here has been okay with messi winning.
To suggest defenders don’t have the skills that attackers do is laughable. I’m not gonna entertain that argument.

BarcaLearning wrote:Generally speaking attacking n flair players are better than say defenders though right? Even as kids or teenager the better players mostly would be the attackers instead of playing to be the defenders. Its just nature of the game, it requires less skills overall to be a defending than an attacking player. Hence this award n any other similar kind naturally means attacking type of players win it most of the time.

The Best Striker award clearly is just a consolation for Lewand this yr. Everyone can see it would be stupid at any other yr with this but not best MF/D award. They improvise n change things yr by yr if need

I disagree. If offensive players are so much more talented, then why don't defensive ones get more credit for being able to shut them down on a relatively consistent basis? Flair typically translates to very little when it comes to affecting the result of a game, but it provides entertainment, which a lot of people hold in high regard - and perhaps understandably so, but if we put flair ahead of effectiveness, then we have to recognize that the metric is based around a subjective standard.

Have a sook you all you sooks. Messi deserved it this year all the way. Great individually carrying a very weak Barca - winning a Copa Del Ray and Copa America as the best player and scorer / assists along the way. The undisputed GOAT of eternity.

What has Lewandowski done to make him deserve it so much this year? Obvs he wouldn't be the wrong choice if he did win it. But what, scored lots of goals and won 1 team league Bundesliga?! Messi has done that in seasons for Barca where there wasn't a better candidate and he didn't win it - 2013 and 2018.

Messi should have 10+ Ballon D'ors to his name but you're lucky he is a victim of his own success and put on higher standards than everyone else. They feel bad for the other players so let Messi miss out on some years but really he should be winning it ever year. I'm sure this isn't his last one either! A PSG CL win and / or Argie WC win next year will bring him number 8!

All the outrage comes from Lewa not getting it when he really should have last year (really dumb to cancel the award in July last year, hope they just give him the 2020 one, it's obvious he deserves it). But the main outrage is cause all the Penaldo fans have finally realised their hero will never have a chance of beating or even equalling the little GOAT!

FennecFox7 wrote:The last two posts made my brain hurt.

Wow. Just wow...

No one is crying. Everyone here has been okay with messi winning.
To suggest defenders don’t have the skills that attackers do is laughable. I’m not gonna entertain that argument.

Tbf i think most people are talking about general reaction not just the reaction from here.

Obviously i agree with you regarding defenders deserving more shine.

Well, it depends on where you're looking. I saw a lot of salt on social media. Particularly from Polish, German, and Ronaldo fans. Evra posted a 7-minute video calling it corruption. Casillas and Kroos have chimed in too.

Ronaldo is getting in on the action himself. He's liking and commenting on essays written by fanboys claiming he should've won the award this year and in the last few years. It's extra funny because some people think he's 'alpha' when he's probably the most insecure footballer of this generation because of his Messi inferiority complex.

This is doing the rounds on twitter:

Casciavit wrote:Well, it depends on where you're looking. I saw a lot of salt on social media. Particularly from Polish, German, and Ronaldo fans. Evra posted a 7-minute video calling it corruption. Casillas and Kroos have chimed in too.

Ronaldo is getting in on the action himself. He's liking and commenting on essays written by fanboys claiming he should've won the award this year and in the last few years. It's extra funny because some people think he's 'alpha' when he's probably the most insecure footballer of this generation because of his Messi inferiority complex.

This is doing the rounds on twitter:

The level of maturity
among so-called legendary footballer.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Why are people still up in arms about who wins this btw? It's been a popularity contest for like a decade.

I can't take people who year after year think it's gonna be any different seriously.

The problem is that it's never had a clear criteria.

The Ballon d'or reverted back to its old format a few years ago. Historically, only journalists were the ones who cast the vote, but when FIFA merged their award with them from 2010-2015, captains and coaches of national teams had an equal weighting when it came to votes (1/3 each).

So you had things like coaches voting for their players, players voting for their friends, or strategic voting where their teammates wouldn't place their competition in the top 3 etc. I think it's fairer that journalists are voting for it, but at the same time, I don't think many of these journalists are that educated when it comes to football.

That's why when Messi won Copa America it was so obvious to anyone who has actually been following the voting trends that he would win. One of the biggest narratives in football was his failure to win a title with Argentina. He finally does it at age 34 against Brazil, in Brazil, and in the process won top scorer and tournament MVP. It was also Argentina's first title since 1993. All I saw those days were pictures of him holding the trophy and his individual prizes from that tournament. Players with no affiliation to Messi were posting pictures of him holding the trophy on social media. Even here in Canada non-sports media were posting him holding the Copa America trophy.

170 journalists vote for the Ballon d'or. Do you seriously think all of those voters keep up to date with football regularly? I don't. So when they vote they'll just vote for the most famous player with the most memorable moments that year (combination of trophies and individual moments). International football tends to be the most-watched competition so journalist votes tend to be weighed more in that direction. The only reason you didn't see that from 2010-2015 was because of players and coaches being included in the voting, but since they've been gone their voting has gone back to that direction.

I remember when City beat PSG I said that if City won the CL, then KDB would be a good bet for the Ballon d'or. Some posters disagreed with me at the time, but if you look at the Ballon d'or voting the only City player who made it to the top 10 was...KDB. He also won the PL POTY when he wasn't a top 3 City player either. However, he's the most famous name on City's team and he scored important goals against BVB and PSG so that's what the voters will remember.

That's how Messi and Ronaldo traded Ballon d'or wins for 13 years. They were the two most famous players in the world because they were the two best players in the world. Whoever had the more memorable year in terms of trophies won, usually ended up winning the Ballon d'or that year.

The difference between Messi and Ronaldo is that Ronaldo always needed a CL to win the Ballon d'or while Messi didn't. The only year Ronaldo didn't need a CL was in 2013, but I don't count that either in this argument. He was trophyless so he wasn't going to win the Ballon d'or ahead of Ribery or Messi until FIFA decided to extend the voting deadline to include his performance against Sweden to pacify him after the Sepp Blatter drama earlier that year. Even then he wasn't the one who led the journalist vote it was the players and coaches who voted for him due to recency bias and a media push lmao.

Messi, on the other hand, has never required a CL to win the Ballon d'or. He didn't win the CL in 2010, 2012, 2019, and 2021 yet he won the Ballon d'or those years. His most memorable trophies won in those years were La Liga and Copa America, and I don't think La Liga holds that much weight in a voter's mind. I honestly think what happened those years was that the teams who did win the CL didn't have a stand-out player. There wasn't that one popular player voters associate with specific teams. That's why if the Ballon d'or was hosted last year, Lewandowski would've won it because fans associated him as Bayern's star player and they saw that Bayern won the treble. However, in 2010 and 2021 you had a situation where there were 2-3 competitors that split the vote allowing Messi to win.

Messi will always get a lot of votes because he's considered the best in the world. As long as he wins something and has insane stats he's always going to be in the running for the Ballon d'or. Even if he's lacking in a specific year with memorable trophies he still has more memorable individual moments than anyone else. The only way to beat him is for him to have an uncharacteristically off year, or for the teams who do win the big trophies to have their own stand-out player who voters can unanimously agree to vote on (Ronaldo with Madrid, Modric with Croatia, and Lewa with Bayern).

Lewandowski's problem this year is that he didn't win any memorable team trophy. He was pretty much relying on his goal stats and a sympathy push for being screwed out of the award in 2020. He's not a player with memorable individual moments either. He plays for Bayern and scores tap-ins against Bundesfodder. His most memorable moment was breaking Gerd Muller's record but I just don't think the voters who vote on the award care about a Polish striker beating a Bundesliga record. It's unfortunate but that's the reality of the situation. If you take note of voting trends Lewandowski not winning shouldn't be a surprise.

I assume that is one of the reasons Mbappe is keen on moving to Madrid. There is A LOT of value for upcoming star players to join teams who don't have that main man. It allows them to be the face of the team and the brand. That means if their team wins the CL they'll automatically become the Ballon d'or favorite.

Mbappe will score 40+ goals at Madrid. People will think of him as Madrid's star player. If Madrid wins the CL, they will automatically think of him as the reason. The Madrid media will do their own push for him to win the award and no one is better at media propaganda than Perez. The Benzema prop after the Nations League is the best example of that.

For his legacy, it's a no-brainer move. If he stays at PSG, Messi and Neymar will just get his votes even if he ends up winning PSG the games.

BarcaLearning wrote:Generally speaking attacking n flair players are better than say defenders though right? Even as kids or teenager the better players mostly would be the attackers instead of playing to be the defenders. Its just nature of the game, it requires less skills overall to be a defending than an attacking player. Hence this award n any other similar kind naturally means attacking type of players win it most of the time.

The Best Striker award clearly is just a consolation for Lewand this yr. Everyone can see it would be stupid at any other yr with this but not best MF/D award. They improvise n change things yr by yr if need

Please delete your account.

Casciavit wrote:Well, it depends on where you're looking. I saw a lot of salt on social media. Particularly from Polish, German, and Ronaldo fans. Evra posted a 7-minute video calling it corruption. Casillas and Kroos have chimed in too.

Ronaldo is getting in on the action himself. He's liking and commenting on essays written by fanboys claiming he should've won the award this year and in the last few years. It's extra funny because some people think he's 'alpha' when he's probably the most insecure footballer of this generation because of his Messi inferiority complex.

This is doing the rounds on twitter:

Top scorer at Juventus and ManU? He's their freaking striker.

"Ronaldo won the Italian Cup" then says "Messi only the Copa del Rey"

Comedy gold.

Incorrect Cascia, Ronaldo won the Balon D'or the year Bayern won the treble and he was invisible in KOs of every competition including against Dortmund.

They've both won it where their team success hasn't been particularly great, there isn't really a difference. They've both benefited from this incredibly flawed process.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Incorrect Cascia, Ronaldo won the Balon D'or the year Bayern won the treble and he was invisible in KOs of every competition including against Dortmund.

They've both won it where their team success hasn't been particularly great, there isn't really a difference. They've both benefited from this incredibly flawed process.

Yes that's why I mentioned 2013 as that's when that happened. He wasn't going to win if it wasn't for the voting extension and the Blatter political drama. If you exclude that year and those unique circumstances he pretty much always needed a CL to win it lol.

So I looked at the Ballon d'or list and the CL didn't hold that much weight in voting until the Messi-Ronaldo era started. The trend began with Kaka in 2007, but he was the first player to win the Ballon d'or after winning the CL with his respective team earlier that year since Van Basten in 1989.

In WC/Euro years the star player of the winning team for that competition usually ended up winning the Ballon d'or (especially the WC).

Now that in large part has to do with viewership. International tournaments had much more viewers. It really wasn't until streaming came along that watching 60 club games a season became more accessible to the average fan. The rise of social media allowed players to have their every game nitpicked. The tactical development of the 2010s and rise of super teams made club football even more attractive. Messi and Ronaldo were so similar in statistical production so the only way to differentiate them was through who won the CL that year.

However, Messi similar to past winners never required the CL to win the Ballon d'or. It only really became a thing for his competition. So if he was competing for the Ballon d'or two decades ago he still would've won the awards he did with 2010 being the exception. That was the only year he didn't lead the journalist vote.

I mean if Messi and Lewandowski competed for the Ballon d'or in 2001 instead of 2021, Messi still would've won. Hell, he probably would have had a bigger lead compared to 2021 since international tournaments had so much more weight and there wouldn't have been a social media sympathy push for Lewandowski back then.

I'm curious to see how the Ballon d'or will play out next year, especially with a November WC. I suspect the ceremony will take place after the final (December 18th), and with that, i think whoever rides off of stellar performances in the WC next year will have the biggest claim.

Casciavit wrote:

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Incorrect Cascia, Ronaldo won the Balon D'or the year Bayern won the treble and he was invisible in KOs of every competition including against Dortmund.

They've both won it where their team success hasn't been particularly great, there isn't really a difference. They've both benefited from this incredibly flawed process.

Yes that's why I mentioned 2013 as that's when that happened. He wasn't going to win if it wasn't for the voting extension and the Blatter political drama. If you exclude that year and those unique circumstances he pretty much always needed a CL to win it lol.

I dunno if he needed it, as much as he won it in these years.

We don't really have evidence of this because his Madrid teams won so consistently. Messi's teams haven't so we have examples which don't really exist for Ronaldo outside a couple of exceptions.

It doesn't mean he wouldn't have tho.

Like for example the Balon D'or he won before he left for Madrid, does anyone really believe he wouldn't have won it if Man Yoo lost the final?

Like come on lol, you're searching for a narrative which doesn't really exist.

I mean the whole thing is opinionated, yet messi fans are insanely aggressive and demeaning and they get a free pass for it, especially on this forum. They single handedly have switched narratives over and over again and find the tiniest little things to kill CR7 with. Like, get over it, it’s his opinion.

I highly doubt he cares, and I highly doubt messi cares. It’s as if anyone with a slightly different opinion then the messi nut huggers gets absolutely flamed (not just on GL), and it ruins any constructive football discussion. Ronaldo fans have been reasonable and introspective particularly here on GL. Twitter 10 year olds unearthed by Cas don’t count,

There’s certain opinions I have that most don’t share. Namely, this stupid obsession over abstract stats like dribbles completed, etc, it’s dumb, and it’s not football. Anyone who’s played at a decent level knows how dumb those stats are, and yet they are used by Messi fans more then anyone else.

Dude, Google them. Some don't exist, and most have been altered to create drama lol

"I’m the best player in the world, the second best player in the world and the third best player in the world. There are some more good players in the level behind me like Kaká, Torres and maybe Messi a bit, but I did all it takes to be the best."

In the actual quote, he says:

"I am the first, second and third best player in the world," joked Ronaldo in an interview with Brazilian daily O Estado de Sao Paulo.

"But there are other good candidates, like Kaka, (Lionel) Messi and (Fernando) Torres.

"a bit" has been added to try and create controversy.

"I’m happy to be the most expensive player in the world. I worth 96M, others worth 0, perhaps. The price that was paid for me shows the difference."

Another quote heavily altered. Here is what he said, no mention of "others are worth 0, perhaps. The price that was paid for me shows the difference". Nor does it mention Messi in the first place.

"I’m not going to answer the question, everyone already knows that I’m better than Messi."

What he actually said:

"Some people say I'm better, other people say it's him, but at the end of the day, they're going to decide who is the best player," Ronaldo told CNN in an exclusive interview before this weekend's Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Chelsea at Munich's Allianz Arena.

"At the moment ... I think it is me," he laughs.

Do you see a pattern yet?

"They whistle me (on 'Messi, Messi' whistles to him in Spanish stadiums) because I’m better than their player. They’re envious. Those who does this are idiots. Everyone who likes football, likes Cristiano Ronaldo the most."

This one doesn't exist and is completely made up. The "quote" from you says September 2011, so here is the article from September 2011:

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/news/story/_/id/956953/real's-cristiano-ronaldo-blasts-'shameful'-referee

"I think it's because I'm rich, handsome and a great player. They envy me - there's no other explanation. We are very happy with the three points we took, but I'm not so satisfied with the refereeing. I hope we never have this referee again."

???

"You know where Messi was in those heights in South America last year? Do You know what he did? Do You know or you don’t? He was eliminated in Copa America in his own country. I think that’s worse, don’t you?"

Can't find this one anywhere.

"I should’ve won the last 3 Ballon d’Ors, but it doesn’t depend on me."

Can't find this one anywhere.

"It doesn’t surprise me that Messi didn’t vote for me in the Ballon D’or, we know the reason."

Can't find this one anywhere.

"If I didn’t win this award it wouldn’t surprise me, because nothing surprises me anymore after what happened with the Ballon d'Or in the prior years."

Can't find this one anywhere.

"I’m sorry for certain Barcelona people not being here, that’s speaks for itself, but I understand that."

Finally, one that is 100% true.

"Maybe Messi misses me. I played in England, Spain, Italy, Portugal, in the national team, while he is still in Spain. Maybe he needs me more. For me, life is a challenge, I like it, and I like to make people happy. I would like him to come to Italy one day."

Another altered quote.

He told Gazzetta dello Sport when asked if he misses Messi: “No, maybe he misses me!"

“I played in England, Spain, Italy, Portugal, in the national team, while he is still in Spain. Maybe he needs me more.

“For me, life is a challenge, I like it and I like to make people happy.

“I would like him to come to Italy one day. Like me, accept the challenge.

“However, if he is happy there, I respect him.

“He is a fantastic player, a good guy but I do not miss anything here. This is my new life and I'm happy.”

And it's clearly banter.

"I want to win more Ballon d'Or than Messi. I deserve it. I think I have to have 6 or 7 or 8 to be above him."

Both players want to win as many as they can. He's literally praising Messi here saying he'd need that many (6, 7 or to be above him.






A list of quotes made by a messi fan and refuted and proven wrong

I mean how can you not see stuff like this and not think messi fans are mentally ill.

I don’t even follow CR7 much anymore, I follow mahrez, my National team, madrid, Big Benz who I have ALWAYS been a bigger fan of.. but messi fans literally live for the guy and you can’t say that hasn’t altered the voting whatsoever

Agree a lot with Cas... its pretty simple, some of these posts r mind boggling I mean I guess ppl will always be biased toward who they like n prefer no matter what happens...

Definitely interesting what will happen next yr due to the timing of the WC. IIRC though didnt the FIFA WPOTY or was it old Ballon D'or award took place in Jan. anyway? They will just make it in Jan. I guess for enough time after the WC final to count the votes n prepare for the ceremony.