I would say Messi this year and Modric 2018. Messi deserved to win it in 2013 though, was a joke Ronaldo got it then. I don't agree with weighting an individual award so heavily on 7 games at a World Cup, Messi did absolutely nothing at club level. At least Modric had also won a CL.
Which year do you think the Ballon d’Or winner was undeserved?
- Thread starter Sir Erik ten Hag
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Yorkie in 99.
Would you have felt Mbappe was an undeserved winner if France had won the World Cup and he won the award instead?
Hard to say, he did a lot more than Messi at club level and arguably had an equally good world cup. Haaland winning it doesn't really sit well with me cause he's such an unremarkable player. I don't really know. Rodri? It was a bit of a poor year in general for individual performances so maybe not the worst to give it to Messi.
Got it, thanks. Agree, Rodri is a great player, but very hard for a player of that profile to win an award like this.
They played 50+ games a season for the same club side. During which week-in, week-out Messi repeatedly showed himself to be the better player.
Anyways my point is, during his prime none of Messi's club or international team mates were ever going to win the award which is widely regarded as the award for the "best player in the world". It's too hard to award you that award, when one of your team mates repeatedly displays that he's just better than you.
You seem unaware internationals exist? Messi competed directly with Xavi/Iniesta at the WC. So they won everything he won domestically which being the best in their positions in the world, as he was in his, but then dominated the WC as well. This goes back to what I said before, if it’s just a global golden boot/assist counter that’s fine but it needs to be consistent.
It's almost as if VvD plays for a club with an absolutely deluded online fanbase.
2013:
Ronaldo - 77 G/A
Messi - 51 G/A
Lewandowski - 49 G/A
Suarez - 47 G/A
I'd say that gap is too big to be bridged by trophies.
Why does it matter? The award has traditionally been awarded to the best player in the world. Xavi and Iniesta could never have been regarded that as long as they were never the best players on their club side.
The awarding of it is inconsistent though. I think it should be exclusively for the best player in the world. Not for the player who has won the most club/international accolades in a year. That's how you end up with that absurdity where someone like Jorginho finishes in the top 3.
Beckham was never at any point the best player in the world.
He was comfortably a level below Figo, Rivaldo and his rivals of the time.
He was comfortably a level below Figo, Rivaldo and his rivals of the time.
I think anyone who delivers in massive moments is fair game for a nomation.
It's when they start considering Lukaku esque stat padders based on what they did at home to Norwich and Burnley it becomes a problem.
Owen in 2001 was an interesting one.
On an individual level he showed up for the big matches, 2 goals in FA cup final and also that hat trick in the England 5-1 in Germany. Really can't remember but I presume he scored loads in Liverpool's Uefa cup win.
In those days without a major tournament it opened the door for less heralded players in elite level to win Balon D'or but was trying to remember who else was in contention. Rivaldo still a big player at Barca at the time. Would assume Totti was close given he inspired Roma to win Seria A and that was a time where it was probably rated a higher quality league than prem. Henry was scoring loads but not really making a huge impact in CL.
Bayern Munich won CL without a real standout star in the line up although Kahn was supreme in the final saving penalties. His time came the next year of course.
Someone like Kane has been playing at a far more consistent level than Owen for many many years but just shows if you can't be decisive in a big match it will limit your chances so he has a chance to change that narrative at Bayern over the next few years.
On an individual level he showed up for the big matches, 2 goals in FA cup final and also that hat trick in the England 5-1 in Germany. Really can't remember but I presume he scored loads in Liverpool's Uefa cup win.
In those days without a major tournament it opened the door for less heralded players in elite level to win Balon D'or but was trying to remember who else was in contention. Rivaldo still a big player at Barca at the time. Would assume Totti was close given he inspired Roma to win Seria A and that was a time where it was probably rated a higher quality league than prem. Henry was scoring loads but not really making a huge impact in CL.
Bayern Munich won CL without a real standout star in the line up although Kahn was supreme in the final saving penalties. His time came the next year of course.
Someone like Kane has been playing at a far more consistent level than Owen for many many years but just shows if you can't be decisive in a big match it will limit your chances so he has a chance to change that narrative at Bayern over the next few years.
Think Cannavaro got it for longevity and he also delivered a defensive masterclass in the SF v Germany so being part of World cup winning team sealed it.
At the time aswell there was realisation that World class defenders were constantly being overlooked in Balon D'or shakeup so it was good timing to have a World class player in World cup winning side.
2019 there were more influential players playing for CL and other league winners.
Beckham. Always David Beckham in 1999.
That's the silly thing; if 2 Argentinians missed their penalties and two Frenchman made theirs, Mbappe would get the award over Messi despite both doing the exact same things.
It's an award more about narrative than performances.
This is a laughable statement.
Is there any player in the history of Ballon D'or that achieved what Messi individually did in 2019? Good luck finding one.
Also, let us know who these unknown "more influential players playing for CL and other league winners" were..
Messi in 2019
Fifa Best
Golden Shoe
IFFHS World's Best Playmaker
CL top goalscorer
CL best forward
La Liga MVP
La Liga top goalscorer
La Liga most assists
Even Van Dijk said below way before Ballon D'or ceremony in June 2019 :
"I think Messi is the best player in the world and I think he deserves it as long as he plays,"
www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2019/06/02/5cf3bcf422601daf268b45a8.html
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This is patently false. Messi had the highest per game rating, most MOTM, 2nd most league+CL assists in whole Europe while also leading Europe not just Ligue 1 in big chance creation, dribbling stats all at 35. He was chosen as the IFFHS World's Best Playmaker.
Messi league stats
Ligue 1 assist leader
Most MOTM in Europe (14 vs Mbappe with 7)
Highest per game rating in Europe 8.28 (vs Mbappe with 7.80)
39 G+A in 40 games in Ligue 1 + CL (vs Mbappe with 45 G+A in 42 games).
Europe 2nd most assists total in the league + CL (right after KDB)
Europe 2nd most big chance creation (right after Bruno)
Europe 2nd most successful dribbles (right after Vinicius)
This is not even funny. Are you sure you watched the WC? Because, Griezmann was by far the best French player in the WC until the final, and even he was nowhere near Messi..
Modric has never been the best footballer on the planet.
I think you've forgotten how much better all around Messi is. In the past, players that scored 10-20 more goals than Zidane, Nedved, etc... didn't win the Balon D'or over them. It's only until people started forcing Ronaldo to be Messi's equal that fans started to reduce the all around performances of players into pure goals and assists stats.
There's a reason why people considered Ronaldinho, Zidane, Kaka, etc.. for best player of the year over players who scored more. It's because of their all around game. It's only a freak like Messi that made you think on top of what those players did, they could also dwarf the former best scorers of yesteryear.
And look where that sort of thinking brought us. Now Haaland was a strong contender for the award purely because of his stats, when his all around game is bad. Ronaldo's game is much better all around than Haaland. Yet people thought because the goal scoring was similar, he deserves the award.
Clearly, you have no idea on the events surrounding 2013 Ballon D'or.. Otherwise, you would not ignore treble winner Bayern's best player Ribery with UEFA Men's Player of the Year , Bundesliga MVP, Club World Cup MVP who was widely expected to win the Ballon D'or and bookies' heavy favorite until the committee all of a sudden decided to extend the deadline the first and last time in their history right after Ronaldo scored a hat-trick against Sweden, the biggest scandal in its history.
Initially, Messi was the bookies' favorite but he had an injury that made him sidelined for 2 months, he missed a lot of games that season. Regardless, he won the Golden Shoe, La Liga MVP, La Liga top goal-scorer, La Liga best forward awards in 2023.. Ronaldo was never a favorite until that "surprising" extension happened the first time in Ballon D'or history right after he scored a hat-trick against Sweden. The existing voters were also given the option to revise their decision, again something that never happened in Ballon D'or history. Ronaldo got the Ballon D'or as the first and probably the last player in Ballon D'or history without a single cup, again business as usual here, just a few coincidences..
" On the same night he scored a stunning hat-trick to fire Portugal through to the World Cup finals in Brazil, Fifa have confirmed that the voting procedure for the award has been extended until 29 November – the previous deadline had passed last week – and there is also now the option to revise your decision."
www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news/fifa-ballon-d-or-cristiano-ronaldo-closes-in-on-award-ahead-of-franck-ribery-and-lionel-messi-after-voting-is-extended-8951560.html
"Ballon d'Or U-turn puts Ronaldo in driving seat"
"Quite what France international Franck Ribery makes of it all is anyone’s guess, with the Bayern Munich star having been tipped to win the award when voting was thought to have ended last week."
www.cnn.com/2013/11/20/sport/football/football-ballon-dor-ronaldo-fifa/index.html
" Fifa has extended the Ballon d'Or voting deadline, improving Cristiano Ronaldo's chances of winning after his superb performance for Portugal in the World Cup play-off success. Bayern Munich's Franck Ribéry, who played for France in their dramatic play-off success against Ukraine, was the bookies' favourite when the nominations were announced."
www.theguardian.com/football/2013/nov/20/cristiano-ronaldo-fifa-ballon-dor
" Franck Ribery has told Canal+ that he still feels cheated out of the 2013 Ballon d'Or it was "an injustice" that he did not receive the award."
www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/37542425/losing-2013-ballon-dor-cristiano-ronaldo-was-injustice
"In an interview with Spanish sports daily AS, the three-time Ballon d’Or winner from France also joked about FIFA’s decision to extend the voting deadline by two weeks to Nov. 29. He says “it happened to coincide with Portugal reaching the World Cup thanks to three goals from Ronaldo.”
www.apnews.com/0845cef082684ceaae25ee5e8ccd8591
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I'll answer you here since we've been derailing Vinicius' thread for long enough
@giorno if you're going to answer him regarding Raul etc., do it here too please.Owen was outscored by 4 different guys during the next season too. Hasselbaink scored 11 more league goals than Owen over the course of 2000/01 and 2001/02 seasons, Henry scored 6 more.
What I think you've missed in my original post though was the point that I don't think that Owen contributed much aside from his goals. It is what separates him from most Ballon d'Or winners and what makes me focus so much on his goalscoring statistics. I wouldn't do so for Henry (even though Henry scored more), I wouldn't do it for Raul, I wouldn't even do it for Sheva... I certainly wouldn't do it for Kane that you keep comparing him to as he is a much better all-round football player (especially an older version of Kane).
But Owen did very little outside of scoring goals — and he didn't score enough to justify his Ballon d'Or in my opinion. He was devastating in big games — a lot like Rashford, whose record against big 6 is outstanding (Owen was a significantly better player, mind you, and I'm not talking about this season's Rashford) as Liverpool would often play on the counter, exploiting Owen's blistering pace and great finishing skills. But when you compare him to other Ballon d'Or winning strikers like Shevchenko (I'm not even going to mention positional GOATs like Ronaldo or van Basten)... there's a huge gap in footballing ability. Even when you look at the guys that didn't win it like Batistuta, Henry, Raul, Rooney etc., he comes up short.
Litmanen should’ve won it in 1995.
Good plan re moving the post to here. Sadly that really is what the Ballon D'or is though? They basically look at popular players (Owen was undoubtedly one), then you pick those who have won some trophies and scored/assisted and that's normally your top 3 in the BdO. That's why people were talking about Haaland winning it, he does very little other than score a lot of goals for a dominant team.I'll answer you here since we've been derailing Vinicius' thread for long enough
Owen was outscored by 4 different guys during the next season too. Hasselbaink scored 11 more league goals than Owen over the course of 2000/01 and 2001/02 seasons, Henry scored 6 more.
What I think you've missed in my original post though was the point that I don't think that Owen contributed much aside from his goals. It is what separates him from most Ballon d'Or winners and what makes me focus so much on his goalscoring statistics. I wouldn't do so for Henry (even though Henry scored more), I wouldn't do it for Raul, I wouldn't even do it for Sheva... I certainly wouldn't do it for Kane that you keep comparing him to as he is a much better all-round football player (especially an older version of Kane).
But Owen did very little outside of scoring goals — and he didn't score enough to justify his Ballon d'Or in my opinion. He was devastating in big games — a lot like Rashford, whose record against big 6 is outstanding (Owen was a significantly better player, mind you, and I'm not talking about this season's Rashford) as Liverpool would often play on the counter, exploiting Owen's blistering pace and great finishing skills. But when you compare him to other Ballon d'Or winning strikers like Shevchenko (I'm not even going to mention positional GOATs like Ronaldo or van Basten)... there's a huge gap in footballing ability. Even when you look at the guys that didn't win it like Batistuta, Henry, Raul, Rooney etc., he comes up short.
I think difference re outscoring Owen is, again, you're just looking at the league. If the BdO was for league performances only, he'd be nowhere near it. They won 4 cups + a Charity shield though + he was scoring freely for England versus some of those names you mentioned.
I do think people forget just how good Owen was as well reading this kind of post, he cold finish off both feet, take people on and could kind of do it all - the reason he's less rated now is because we've seen how the rest of his career panned out but at that time if you remember 98 to 01 he was a golden boy. Kind of like how many PL watcher's perception of Sheva is he was overrated because he was so poor at Chelsea, it's not an accurate representation of their pomp.
It was in a world cup year, so I have no issue with Messi getting it
And for the love of all that's holy let's not awaken our resident bot
Got to be Michael Owen.
A player who could never do anything but run off the shoulder of the last defender and poach goals was the 5th highest scorer in the league (outscored by Marcus Stewart), wins three second rate cup competitions (scoring in one of the finals) and gets given the fecking Ballon d'Or for it.
Yep, nothing will ever top that.
Owen 2001 was a joke…
Ribery deserved the 2013 over Ronaldo and Sneijder over Messi in 2010 (Iniesta a close second that year, Messi third for me).
Ribery deserved the 2013 over Ronaldo and Sneijder over Messi in 2010 (Iniesta a close second that year, Messi third for me).
Owen winning it was the worst decision ever.
Not even the best English player that year.
Not even the best English player that year.
It’s usually Messi and Ronaldo fans arguing that the other didn’t deserve certain awards, when in reality both players benefitted massively off their popularity in these popularity awards.
In 2013 they even extended the deadline to appease to Ronaldo (fans) who were harassing Blatter over the Commander vs Good boy comments.
2013 was for Ribery, don’t think many people doubt that especially with the way the voting was extended.
2021 ballon d’or was also a bit ridiculous, giving it to Messi for winning the Copa which was being held every other year just so he could win an international trophy.
In 2013 they even extended the deadline to appease to Ronaldo (fans) who were harassing Blatter over the Commander vs Good boy comments.
2013 was for Ribery, don’t think many people doubt that especially with the way the voting was extended.
2021 ballon d’or was also a bit ridiculous, giving it to Messi for winning the Copa which was being held every other year just so he could win an international trophy.
Keegan 79 should have been John Robertson, the incontestably most influential European footballer for a couple of years at least.
Can’t be anything more ridiculous than suggesting the Copa was held every other year and the entire thing organised just to give one player the chance to win an international trophy.
I’d guess too late mate, he’ll be on this like a fly to cow shit.
This, Ronaldo, Mbappe and Messi were all better that year.
Many years had debatable (though not undeserving) winners.
i'd say the least talented (non-keeper) winners were Paulo Rossi, Igor Belanov, Jean-Pierre Papin, Matthias Sammer, Michael Owen, Pavel Nedved and Fabio Cannavaro, but you can make strong arguments for most of them.
With that group you've either got players that were too far into being relatively one-dimensional poacher/goalscorers (Rossi, Papin, Owen) for my liking, or lacked a certain level of genius and creativity in their play, which i personally feel the winner of a best player in the world award should generally have, unless another type of player has a freak season. A stopper winning is just a depressing thing imo, and i'd back seperate awards for defenders/keepers.
i'd say the least talented (non-keeper) winners were Paulo Rossi, Igor Belanov, Jean-Pierre Papin, Matthias Sammer, Michael Owen, Pavel Nedved and Fabio Cannavaro, but you can make strong arguments for most of them.
With that group you've either got players that were too far into being relatively one-dimensional poacher/goalscorers (Rossi, Papin, Owen) for my liking, or lacked a certain level of genius and creativity in their play, which i personally feel the winner of a best player in the world award should generally have, unless another type of player has a freak season. A stopper winning is just a depressing thing imo, and i'd back seperate awards for defenders/keepers.
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I have no idea what happened in 2001.
I think Henry, Ronaldinho and Deco were all better than Shevchenko in 2004.
Henry and Ronaldinho were obviously better than Cannavaro(Pirlo or Buffon would be better options if they wanted an Italian) in 2006.
CR7 didn't even deserve the top 5 in 2016.
Messi should have won in 2018(although Salah wouldn't be absurd) and maybe in 2016(Griezmann, Suárez and Neymar were really great that year). I think both, Messi and Neymar, were better than CR7 in 2017, but I understand that his insane goalscoring in UCL KOs(half of them had some kind of irregularity, but whatever) was very influential for the award.
I think Henry, Ronaldinho and Deco were all better than Shevchenko in 2004.
Henry and Ronaldinho were obviously better than Cannavaro(Pirlo or Buffon would be better options if they wanted an Italian) in 2006.
CR7 didn't even deserve the top 5 in 2016.
Messi should have won in 2018(although Salah wouldn't be absurd) and maybe in 2016(Griezmann, Suárez and Neymar were really great that year). I think both, Messi and Neymar, were better than CR7 in 2017, but I understand that his insane goalscoring in UCL KOs(half of them had some kind of irregularity, but whatever) was very influential for the award.
If you want to use world cup year as arguement then Spain, France and Germany players got robbed hard.
2013 for Cristiano Ronaldo definitely.
I mean yeah, it's well established that most people believe the 2010 BdO should have gone to one of Sneijder, Xavi or Iniesta. In 2018 it was Modric. 2014, the issue is Germany didn't have a standout performer at the WC(similar to France and Spain in that regard. When everyone is great and it's a team win, how do you pick one guy over the rest?). They ended up picking Neuer as the WC winner candidate and honestly, don't think anybody would have particularly batted an eye of he won. Still reckon Muller or Schweinsteiger would have been better choices. If Kroos didn't have a horrid final it could have been him