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).
I agree so much with you. Spot-on especially about how it’s difficult for the average viewer to comprehend DMs importance compared to an attacker.
I’ve said this in other posts. Anyone who even pays attention to the Ballon D’or, let alone thinks it means anything is undoubtedly under the age of, say, 35. I was a teen in the 90’s and couldn’t tell you one recipient of this award from that era. In fact, it’s only become a thing because of Messi and Ronaldo.
Yeah it became a thing with ronaldo and messi, and that’s exactly why it will still matter for many soccer players, they want to have as many as them, it wasn’t important before but now it is, wether we like it or not.
Bernardo Silva or Rodri deserved the Ballon D’or more than Messi, let alone Haaland… What a joke of a trophy. Lost what little credibility it had
Are you really a “casual” if you vote based on the most hyped competitions though? The voters are more likely to have watched them, because they’re more appealing. Nobody has the patience and concentration to watch every game of one league, let alone every league, let alone every competition.
This award is not for the fans. It wasn’t made FOR the fans. It is a recognition given to the players. Who wouldn’t want to win a Ballon d’Or? Ffs. I’m seeing posts about fans not giving an F about the Ballon d’Or. Well, who cares? If you don’t like it, then don’t watch it. Players still attend the show because they like to be recognized, and it’s a prestigious award for them. End of conversation.
Ballon d’Or has only become that prestigious in the last decade or so, in the 90s people barely cared about it.
At the end of the day is just a huge marketing campaign and yes, it’s in order to engage millions of fan with it and the sport in general. Do you think having as guests the streamer Speed or the Brazilian Tiktok dude are also to give recognition to players? Do you think Drogba and Beckham presenting the awards are for the players too? Please.
France Football just wants to make its award as big of a deal as possible, in order to maximize its profits. If there was a completely objective way to compare players (something like match ratings, but perfected), the majority of fans wouldn’t care about this, because there would barely be an controversy.
Was Martinez the best goalkeeper in the world last season? Absolutely not, but who cares, billions of people saw him save penalties in a WC quarterfinal and final. Was Jorghinho the 3rd best player in the world in 2021? Of course not, but casuals saw him winning both Euros and UCL, on teams that lacked star players. He wasn’t even Chelsea’s best midfielder that year. Was Ronaldo Nazario the best player in the whole 2002 calendar year? Again, not, but billions saw him winning the WC for Brazil, so nobody cared about him not doing anything before or after the competition. It has always been the same. Casuals only care for big moments and huge trophies and that’s only what matters for this award. Someone like Kane or Ter Stegen could be world class week in week out, but at the end of the day they’ll finish much lower than Man City’s bench player, Alvarez.
It has always been like that and it always will be. It has nothing to do with “recognition”, it’s only ever been about keeping the casuals happy.
Please stfu. Can the mods ban anything above balls dor for one month?
You know that there’s a way to just not care for these shitty awards, right? And it’s called, wait for it: just ignoring it, or making fun of it!
Same thing with the Grammies and to a lesser extent the Oscars: Nobody takes them seriously.
I think this is the way. Leonardo DiCaprio only having 1 Oscar sums up how irrelevant these awards are as well.
Some people IQ is so low that they only check goals at this point. Goals are the most important aspect in football but is NOT the only one. Messi not just score goals he does so much more.
Lionel Messi v Erling Haaland during the #BallondOr voting period:
👕 Competitive apps: 49 – 56 ⚽️ Goals: 30 – 56 🎯 Total shots: 188 – 190 🅰️ Assists: 24 – 10 🎁 Big chances created: 41 – 14 🤦 Big chances missed: 16 – 40 🔑 Key passes: 142 – 43 💨 Successful dribbles: 138 – 26 👌 Touches p/g: 76.3 – 23.1 📥 Touches in opp. box: 261 – 339 📈 Sofascore Rating: 8.08 – 7.36
i love when you guys choose some bullshit handpicked stat that no one has ever heard of it argue how much he “deserves” it
Do you mean: “No idiot have ever heard of”. Yes I agree
Sofascore rating 💀💀💀💀
So what is more relevant than statistics? Or you prefer goals vs goals? So midfielders and defenders are worthless? Chance creation, progression and defense doesn’t matter at all?
Agreed completely. Sadly theres too many braindead messi fans who will ignore this reasoning and downvote this post.
As a football fan, and season ticket holder at my club since 1983 and who’s team has players on the list.
I couldn’t give a flying f about the Balon D’Or and don’t know anyone that does.
Means nothing to me.
I’m tired of the Ballon d’Or conversation being so common in football these days. It wasn’t like this when I was growing up. Such a pointless piece of shit thing. You have fans and media trying to push Ballon d’Or at all times of the year even when it’s nowhere near time for the award.
People used to accept it was pretty much irrelevant. Now lots of people get worked up about it.
It all started with Real Madrid PR team/Florentino + all CR7 fanboys in 2013. After getting very upset about Messi/Barca dominance, they extended the voting window until after the WC playoffs where CR7 shined against a weak Sweden team, and which made him get it ahead of someone like Ribery who based on the criterias deserved it a lot more.
I wonder which team this guy supports
I think it only really came up as a way of arguing between messi and Ronaldo. Before that it was just sort of there
Exactly, it’s just a popularity contest, the one that gets more votes wins and that’s it, there is no point discussing “x didn’t deserve to be 7th” or whatever.
Wow, so Messi, Martinez, and Julian didn’t deserve any recognition to you. I’m not sure, but you seem biased…
Anyway, the GOAT lifted the ballon d’or once again for all europe to see.