Lionel Messi was not among the players nominated for the Golden Ball for the first time since 2005. Emmanuel Bojan from “France Football” tried to explain the reasons for the omission of the Argentine star.
The 35-year-old footballer is considered by many observers to be one of the best or even the best player in the history of football.
As many as seven Golden Balls, the prize awarded by the France Football magazine for the best player in the world, can be used as confirmation.
In addition, Lionel Messi has not been in the top five of the prestigious poll only once since 2005, and this will be the second time, as the star Paris Saint-Germain did not gain recognition in the eyes of the competition organizers and was not included in the list of 30 nominees.
Emmanuel Bojan from the aforementioned magazine tried to explain such a turn of events by the Argentine’s reduction of flights and his failure to achieve significant individual and team successes in the face of changing the rules for selecting the distinguished players.
– Messi has been nominated fifteen times in a row, has won seven times and is the winner of the last edition. It all matters a lot when it comes to the final choice. We discussed the issue of placing him among the 30 nominees, but the new criteria for awarding the Golden Ball turned out to be unfavorable for him. From this year on, we award the award for the season, not the calendar year. In this situation, we could not take into account, for example, the Copa América won by Argentina a year ago. Admittedly, Messi’s first season in Paris was disappointing. Both in terms of visual impression and statistics – stated the journalist “France Football”.
However, the list of distinguished competitors also included Cristiano Ronaldo – the winner of five plebiscites. The Portuguese also had a very mediocre game with Manchester United, but he did better on an individual basis than his slightly younger colleague, which probably turned out to be decisive when placing him on the list.
Naturally, Robert Lewandowski was there. However, it will be difficult for the Polish representative to reach for the desired award, because today Karim Benzema is considered to be the clear favorite to win the Golden Ball.
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