Nothing to see here folks. It was a pretty meh year in terms of individual performances. I mean, come on, Chelsea won CL, and Italy won Euro, and the one player who features in both is fucking Jorginho
. You can blow all the smoke you can up his ass until your head explodes, you still can't make Jorginho a Ballon d'Or winner because it's just embarrassing. Even putting him in the top 3 is borderline hilarious.
The best players in the world atm are probably Lewandowski, Salah, Mbappe, and Van Dijk. But Lewa was unlucky because he got injured in CL at the worst time, and Liverpool and Salah had an off-year. France didn't cover themselves in glory either at the Euro and Mbappe missed the key penalty vs Switzerland, so that's him out. On top of that, his Qatari team got their pants pulled by Burak Ilmaz.
It was meant to be for Messi. He had a good story to sell with his Copa America win. You don't have to be the best to win it. In years when there isn't a clear winner, the biggest name with the best story usually wins. This was that year.