Before you downvote me, I’m not saying someone deserves it or someone doesn’t. If you value national team football as more important, Messi deserves it. Club football, Haaland deserves it. If you value many trophies, plus incredible consistency throughout the season, then Rodri deserves it. It’s completely subjective.

There has been tons of confusion about these awards and rankings. But if we actually see these as something to appeal to large masses of casual fans, every winner and nominee make completely perfect sense. Casual fans don’t watch every game of every top league, they don’t watch every UCL game. WC is more appealing to the average fan, because it’s one month, the structure is easy, it’s exciting and easy to follow. Everyone has watched Argentina lift the trophy, France reach the final, Croatia and Morocco with surprise semi-final appearences. But not as many people have watched all 38 EPL or La Liga games for example.

In this way, it makes perfect sense that Martinez is awarded the best goalkeeper award. Casual fans don’t care about Ter Stegen keeping tons of clean sheets in La Liga, Courtois or Onana bossing it in the UCL or Alisson being amazing every weekend. They haven’t watched all those games, but they all have watched Martinez saving important penalties to lead Argentina to win the WC.

Same goes for Alvarez finishing in the 7th place. This season he is obviously world class, but last season he was a bench player, he didn’t start a single UCL game after the group stages, despite no injuries. In the WC he was amazing though, and millions of people watched him being amazing, so that’s all that matters. Similarly with Messi. The large masses watched 100% of his amazing performances that made him deserve the Ballon d’Or, whereas they didn’t watch most of the games that made Haaland deserve it. The millions of casual fans can appreciate easier an incredible quick dribbler and crazy good finisher like Mbappe, than a defensive midfielder like Rodri. That’s why Mbappe finished higher. DMs like him, Busquets and Casemiro are always underrated, because it’s more difficult for the average viewer to comprehend their importance, compared to an attacker.

So, I think all of these awards and rankings are 100% deserved, if you see them as a worldwide promotion of the sport. It has always been like that (see 2002).