Ya and brazil is complete garbage, while mbappe has France and Bellingham has England

Its a nail in the coffin for the award

This is your current BdO winner ffs we need Messi back in europe to save the reputation of our sport https://t.co/KG7h77dNnl

— Jimmy (@FCBJimmy_) October 16, 2024

Love the plot twist of Messi fans now insisting NT performances should be THE deciding factor for winning the BO. To hell with La Liga and the CL  I guess. They were singing a different tune before 2021 lmao.

Myesyats wrote:Its a nail in the coffin for the award

This is your current BdO winner ffs we need Messi back in europe to save the reputation of our sport https://t.co/KG7h77dNnl

— Jimmy (@FCBJimmy_) October 16, 2024

The nail in the coffin was handing it to an MLS player.

farfan wrote:Love the plot twist of Messi fans now insisting NT performances should be THE deciding factor for winning the BO. To hell with La Liga and the CL  I guess. They were singing a different tune before 2021 lmao.

Thats not it

It's just about holding players to the same standard. If Messi was diminished for underwhelming career with Argentina then so should Vini for his nonexistent national career.

Its Madrid fans who pretend NT doesnt exist now whereas in the past it was their main argument against Messi being GOAT

Its you who is pick and choosing whether NT matters or not... when your players fake injuries for NT breaks you pretend this world doesnt even exist

No idea how much recency bias there is n if its really supposed to be just for last season still... but according to the bookies odds atm, Vini is definitely gonna win it

farfan wrote:
The nail in the coffin was handing it to an MLS player.

Normal football fans are seeing the light

Lionel Messi not being among the 30 nominees for Ballon d'Or is an absolute joke.

Nobody can convince me that he's not clear of at least 75% of the 30 nominees.

— ???????????? ????????????????  (@TheEuropeanLad) October 21, 2024

Myesyats wrote:

farfan wrote:Love the plot twist of Messi fans now insisting NT performances should be THE deciding factor for winning the BO. To hell with La Liga and the CL  I guess. They were singing a different tune before 2021 lmao.

Thats not it

It's just about holding players to the same standard. If Messi was diminished for underwhelming career with Argentina then so should Vini for his nonexistent national career.

Its Madrid fans who pretend NT doesnt exist now whereas in the past it was their main argument against Messi being GOAT

Its you who is pick and choosing whether NT matters or not... when your players fake injuries for NT breaks you pretend this world doesnt even exist

I'm not sure it's Madrid fans who were pushing these sorts of arguments since their main BO contender at the time was going through the same predicament: Stellar CL and League performances, lackluster NT performances when it mattered. Remember that Ronaldo won the BO after a first round WC exit (2014)  It would have made 0 sense for them to criticize Messi for something that Ronaldo was also failing at. These arguments were mostly made by people who were tried of the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly and simply wanted to reward someone else.

The standard is still pretty much the same. NT football is an important tie breaker between elite players but it's not the be all end all, especially in non-WC years. People forget that this is the same award that the likes of Owen and Shevchenko won strictly thanks to League and Cup competitions in Europe. The level of competition changes from year to year and Vini should be compared to the current crop of BO contenders, not the historically high competition of the 2010s.

More importantly, the people acting all indignant about the possibility of Vini winning it haven't made a solid case for any alternative. Rodri didn't stand out in the CL last year, wasn't Man City's best player last season, and is clearly not the difference maker for Spain. Giving him the award would be a massive departure from what the award has represented up to this point. When people were making their case against Ronaldo and Messi back in the day they were offering up very viable alternatives like Sneijder, Xavi, Iniesta, Neuer (2014), Modric etc... Rodri just doesn't fit the bill and he has simply become the default candidate that the anti-Vini/anti-Madrid crowd is rallying behind.

farfan wrote:

Myesyats wrote:

farfan wrote:Love the plot twist of Messi fans now insisting NT performances should be THE deciding factor for winning the BO. To hell with La Liga and the CL  I guess. They were singing a different tune before 2021 lmao.

Thats not it

It's just about holding players to the same standard. If Messi was diminished for underwhelming career with Argentina then so should Vini for his nonexistent national career.

Its Madrid fans who pretend NT doesnt exist now whereas in the past it was their main argument against Messi being GOAT

Its you who is pick and choosing whether NT matters or not... when your players fake injuries for NT breaks you pretend this world doesnt even exist

Rodri just doesn't fit the bill and he has simply become the default candidate that the anti-Vini/anti-Madrid crowd is rallying behind.

This. if you're picking someone based on NT and club achievement alone, it should be Carvajal not Rodri, the guy who won both the Euro and CL.

Be honest with yourself though, at the end of the day you don't want Vinicius to win it because you don't like his attitude, he pisses you off too much.

Pedram wrote:

farfan wrote:

Myesyats wrote:

Thats not it

It's just about holding players to the same standard. If Messi was diminished for underwhelming career with Argentina then so should Vini for his nonexistent national career.

Its Madrid fans who pretend NT doesnt exist now whereas in the past it was their main argument against Messi being GOAT

Its you who is pick and choosing whether NT matters or not... when your players fake injuries for NT breaks you pretend this world doesnt even exist

Rodri just doesn't fit the bill and he has simply become the default candidate that the anti-Vini/anti-Madrid crowd is rallying behind.

This. if you're picking someone based on NT and club achievement alone, it should be Carvajal not Rodri, the guy who won both the Euro and CL.

Be honest with yourself though, at the end of the day you don't want Vinicius to win it because you don't like his attitude, he pisses you off too much.

The anti Vini hate is driving a lot of this, the sooner they can admit this the quicker we can all move on with our lives and stop entertaining the silly idea that Rodri is the best player in the world.

Farfan is spot on as usual in his long post above but a bit disappointing he failed to mention the most clinching point.

That the World Cup, quite simply is vastly overrated. old heads here or the ones who buy into its FIFA unite the world globalist narrative will say otherwise but guess what, its inflated in importance due to its cinematic narrative, history and then of course cause its played every 4 years therefore each win will by default hold more importance than something that is annual.

secondly, the World Cup in footballing quality and overall competition is vastly inferior to what's essentially the best club competition in the world and by far, the champions league. anyone debating that is out of their mind and a moonbat. its not even close. European football is the best in the world and if someone finds that view Eurocentric then you are arguing in bad faith.

club football by default is better given the time, money, stake and resource spent into club teams v international football that is reducing in importance and subsequent quality and has been for over 20 years now.

Messi winning the World Cup in his nauseating he has completed football narrative is simply more attractive than Cristiano blitzing through the competition and being the undisputed king of the tourney itself.

but yes lets forget how poor Messi's UCL campaigns past the group stages were in his latter years in FCB compared to Cristiano who trumps him easily in the competition.

Vinicius won the UCL and speaking as a Spaniard his performances trump Rodri who whilst tactically important, was nowhere near as influential as Vinicius in his respective Liga and UCL campaign.

this is not a Sneijder v Messi in 2010 like debate simply bc Sneijder was considerably more influential in his own campaign than Rodri was in his own.

Guardiola's absurd and uncomfortably affectionate praise of a player generally does influence opinions akin to how his LOL and cringe crying over Kun Aguero had ppl forget the player was a complete UCL and International flop.

Vini to me is a bit annoying but was the best candidate for the award as any other debate is pure cope.

Ronaldo won Balon D'ors coz he had a great stacked team in every position that won CLs. Messi won Balon D'ors coz he was quite simply the best player in the world.

El Gunner wrote:Ronaldo won Balon D'ors coz he had a great stacked team in every position that won CLs. Messi won Balon D'ors coz he was quite simply the best player in the world.

Still baffles me that somebody wouldn't admit this. Only season Cronaldo was somewhat close to Messi in performance was in 13-14 when Messi was injured, and only player that equalled fit Messi was Neymar in 16-17.

Harmonica wrote:Rodri has same seasonal performance rating as Vicinius in league, cl and Euro combined. But Rodri has played more which should put him ahead of Vicinius. But Bellingham has been better than both.


Should be Bellingham, could be Rodri, Vicinius would be travesty.

El Gunner wrote:Ronaldo won Balon D'ors coz he had a great stacked team in every position that won CLs. Messi won Balon D'ors coz he was quite simply the best player in the world.

yeah I was like wtf im reading

They keep winning without him too

Both had stacked super teams behind them in their peak years, not sure how anyone can argue otherwise. In the Guardiola era Messi was playing with the core of the greatest NT of all time (who were smashing the rest of the world without him) and later on he played as part of arguably the greatest offensive trio of all time with Suarez and Neymar. It's only in latter years where the supporting cast fell off. Ronaldo's teams were not as a good early on so it's a wash really.

Some Barça fans seem to have a bit of cognitive dissonance when it comes to these comparisons. They often argue that Ronaldo had the stronger supporting cast, but when it comes down to it, they still favor their own players. You'll rarely find Barça fans who would take Kroos-Casemiro-Modric over Xavi-Busquets-Iniesta, pre-2021 Benzema over Suarez, or Bale over Neymar etc..

Real Madrid had much better depth in every position and a great defense... Barca only had great attack and midfield.

yes cause Barça did not have the greatest team of all time and of course Messi's big game disasters post Pep Barça naturally is swept under the rug.

lame take there

El Gunner wrote:Ronaldo won Balon D'ors coz he had a great stacked team in every position that won CLs. Messi won Balon D'ors coz he was quite simply the best player in the world.

Both had largely stacked teams whenever they won it, to be perfectly fair. I don’t think that’s debatable.

Barcelona’s last CL win came when they still had Neymar and Suarez, and every other top team in Europe were conveniently crippled by injuries, including the opposing finalist, Juventus

The argument people made about messi and his NT was about being the GOAT not BDOR. You guys are moving goal posts and can't even name another player that's more deserving bc the most next deserving players are Madrid players lmao.

I've always wondered what the result would be if Bayern had robben and ribery hhealthy in 2015 against Barca. That was the only team I thought could take them down when healthy