I find it comical how every time Messi and Haaland are mentioned in a sentence, all the Messi fans (the toxic ones) go and discredit Haalands phenomenal season and talk about how he’s just a striker so his goals are just normal. I genuinely don’t know what a player has to do in order to beat Messi because he could do the bare minimum and win it. Haaland did everything this year. He won everything there is to win and contributed to every game he played yet people still want to crown Messi as the 2023 PotY which I think is delusional. Messi is the greatest, but this was not his YEAR. One good month in a year with 11 other bad ones does not equal 12 months of solid high performance and consistency from Haaland. He has done everything he possibly could to win it, meanwhile Messi had one piece of the puzzle. It’s utterly unfair that haaland cannot compete on an international level with Norway and therefore cannot ever be considered the greatest player of the year. People are pretending like Messi did something insane this year, he didn’t. He had a good month. If this was any other player you lot would be fuming.

Anyways that’s my opinion, in the end it’s not like either of them loses sleep over it.

I’m not expecting serious discussions. I’ll probably be called a fanboy or get told to cope a few times but that’s what you get in this community. This is just from a casual fan perspective so if I’m wrong, let me know politely without insults thanks.

  • alkforreddituse@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Journalists just like to give him ballon d’or, even though 5 of his weren’t deserved (Xavi, Neymar/Ronaldo, VVD, Lewandowski, Haaland), for the sake of enhancing the lens of “good old time” football.

    This fascination of “talented” players and “fancy” narratives really ruined football. For example, take a look on how many people will take Neymar over De Bruyne, or Ronaldinho over Lewandowski at all time rankings.

    Pure delusion, i know. Now because no one is the face of the “talented” players or “fancy” narratives, they have to make some fugazy case for Messi to win it, and also to smear Ronaldo’s face in football history, because you know, the history of football in the early 21st century is basically Ronaldo vs Messi, right?

    Believe me, if Ronaldo had stopped being world’s top 10 player in terms of quality every year post-Madrid, they’d stop giving messi the ballon d’or.

    • Psychological_Lab_52@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Never heard such tripe in my life. I get that you’re one of those guys that gets all soppy about a player having the best season of their career and upset at the thought of them missing out on a balon d’or to the actual best player in the world just because they’ve already won it a bunch of times, but wake up and see some sense.

      Messi realistically should already have 10+ and none of the players you mentioned realistically deserved one over him. Get a grip.

  • Fede113@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    So you start your post saying messi toxic fans discredit Haaland year, then procceed to do the same with messis year, do you see the irony? Messi had a simular goal contribution than haaland, while playing for a worst team. Then went to the most important tournament in football, and was the absolute best player, having a legendary perfomance.

    Haaland was great this last year, Messi was better.

  • Leithy27@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Summarizing everyone’s responses:
    You sound sour
    You cry about people belittling Haalnd while doing the same for Messi
    Your take is EXTREMELY biased and incorrect
    Making the case for Haaland, and not Pedri proves that you are indeed a casual, as you said

    Here’s the truth, Messi Haaland and Mbappe have about the same G/A aka goal contributions for the whole season. However, those arent the stats that define contribution to winning, otherwise GKs and Defenders are pointless right? Anyway they are even on that front so lets look at two of the stats I mentioned, surely Haaland at least dominates there right?
    Man of the Match - Messi 1st
    Player Ranking (by all big data collectors) - Messi 1st

    KDB being as exceptional as he is, is relatively 4th and 2nd ( at least in SC ). Makes sense? You have one stats defined by football experts and one defined by mathematical algorithms that can look way deeper into the game then we can, BOTH unanimously, with a very wide range of participants, are pointing to Messi being the best player this year. Also the MAJORITY of the coaches and players stated that Messi deserves the Ballon Dor including his enemies and Haaland’s friends - Deschamps, Bellingham, Rodri (the guy who should have been 2nd), including everyone else. And ON TOP of all that the journalists, not 3, not 5, a democratic vote of A 100, decided the exact same thing.

    So now, tell me which one of those things that I listed is false otherwise genuinely explain how ALL of them UNANIMOUSLY point towards Messi and he’s undeserving in your eyes without seeing your own bias.

    If after reading this you still cannot phantom that Messi deserved the Ballon D’or maybe just join the crying gangs on Twitter, it’s okay to be salty and hateful towards someone you didnt like winning as long as you are aware of it.

    PS: This isnt about Haaland, but if you didnt even win POTT of the biggest tournament you played in, it’s really really hard to make your case, since that’s what it’s all - being the best on the biggest stage, Pedri won that. On top of all that, disappearing in not 1, 2 or 3, but ALL of the semi final and final games really put the nail in the coffin for him. He’s absolutely spectacular but saying he had an amazing season for scoring goals against Forest and ignoring the games that actually win titles is shameful.

  • Tiny_Ad7895@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Here’s the thing, as a striker, halland made a wonderfull season, and for me this year he deserves it more than messi, but actually the results were both real madrid and cr7 fans; let me explain. Messi was not aknowledge by them as the GOAT because of the world cup, that was their excuse, so messi’s world cup was so noisy that they had to give it to him. Now the reason why messi and cr7 are so great is not just goals + asists, the simple presence of them could change the whole strategy of their rivals, and they got statistics compared to lewandowski, haaland or suarez almost anny season, so basically playmakers who also are better strikers than the strikers

  • Next_Vast_1042@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Haaland, although a great player, is overrated, many of his goals were tap ins and he has had some bad games in really important matches (such as against arsenal). Not saying he isn’t a good player but he certainly isnt world class

  • communick@soccer.forumMEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Here is the thing: Argentina without Messi would never win the world title, but City could have won the treble without Haaland.