Lionel "The Greatest of All Time" Messi

[Windhook]

Also another factor against Lewa's bid - Poland finished bottom of their group at the Euro 2020 with just a single point, were outplaced by Slovakia. That means nothing to me, as I judge every player individually, but that's not how Ballon d'Or criterias work.

Meanwhile Messi was criticized throughout his career for not having won a major international trophy with Argentina. So it finally happened this year and now we all should play down, minimize this achievement compared to Lewa's only outstanding 41 goals in the Bayernliga... Get a grip, guys.

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

Not to mention the masterclasses Oblak was dropping bailing Atletico out. Benzema was the best player in La Liga last season imo.

Yeah Oblak played a huge role for their title win. You can argue about whether messi or benz was better, but Suarez was a level behind them.

 

[Morten]

Not to mention the masterclasses Oblak was dropping bailing Atletico out. Benzema was the best player in La Liga last season imo.

No, Messi was the best player in la liga last season, Benzema was a step above Suarez anyway though.

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

Also another factor against Lewa's bid - Poland finished bottom of their group at the Euro 2020 with just a single point, were outplaced by Slovakia. That means nothing to me, as I judge every player individually, but that's not how Ballon d'Or criterias work.

Meanwhile Messi was criticized throughout his career for not having won a major international trophy with Argentina. So it finally happened this year and now we all should play down, minimize this achievement compared to Lewa's only outstanding 41 goals in the Bayernliga... Get a grip, guys.

Messi did win 6 ballon dor's without an international trophy. He did win the ballon dor also in 2010 in which argentinia had underperformed. The media have often wrongly criticized him for his performances for Argentina but it didnt affect as much the ballon dor wins as many think. Of course it would have been a plus for ballon dor if he would have won earlier with argentinia a trophy but this isnt unexpected as argentinia was at least in copa americas always a top3 team.

And the performances from poland shouldnt be against lewa's bid as he did more than expected with scoring 3 goals in 3 matches.

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

To end this discussion here, as it doesn't lead to anything: In my opinion you could give the ballon dor messi if you look at the ballon dor history. The problem is that some here pretend Messi played at the 2011 level and anyone who prefers Lewandowski can only be a hater which of course is absolute nonsense.

 

[Windhook]

One of the few Bundesliga matches I watched last season, as I was on a holiday in the snowy Rhodope mountains resting after 3 hours long walk.

Stuttgart played the game like some random 3. Bundesliga random team, completely amateurish stuff. Bayern in the second half decided to spare their historic rival the humiliation. It could have ended 12-0 if it was a big tie game.

 

[BarcaOG]

It's a psychologic thing.

I think deep down he loves Messi just as much as the rest of us, but he feels betrayed and blames the club's failures on Leo. It's his way of coping with the losses in recent years.

If OG saw Messi on the street he'd be the most starstruck guy there. Leo is like a son who failed him.

[MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION] where u at

i would, indeed (and duh--youd have to be an idiot not to. id do the same if i saw CR or lewa or pierre effing aubameyang, lol. i wouldnt if it was Mueller or Neuer though because theyre arrogant jerks).

in fact youll be surprised to hear that I have two messi jerseys: messi's 11-12 barca jersey and his copa america 2021 jersey. the former because that year he was absolutely unstoppable and beyond compare and the latter because i was glad he finally won something with argentina. ive always said he had a brilliant copa (except in the final).

my issue with messi is that after 2015 his CL form dropped dramatically (and remember that the CL kos are two legged affairs. you dont get to pick and choose. that is dishonest and convenient). he was captain for a couple of years and the symbol of our team, yet he appeared completely defeated and unmotivated as we were humiliated for like 4 straight years. all the while, blind messifans kept on about how he was the absolute greatest--well, there is no other GOAT contender who has such an awful losing (and again, not just, losing, but losing in a humiliating manner) streak in the elite tournaments like messi does. in other words, most of you lot kept on talking about messi like it was 2012, when we were a top european side and he was banging 60/year and delivering epic CL KO performances, when in reality our team had become a CL joke and messi couldnt do a thing about it.

thats my problem

in fact there are some here like catalunitz who would still say GOAT messi #1, 8 ballondor PLS if barcelona was beat 10-0 at home to real madrid. and you lot think im the one whos nutty

 

[Birdy]

No way would Messi win over Lewa if Lewa had around 30 goals in Bundesliga, won the German Cup and scored 2 goals in the final and won the EURO's as the outright top scorer, assister and MVP. Or if anyone did it in that kind of style. And people are always hit with recency bias, forgetting that Messi scored 2 goals in the final of the Copa del Rey, scoring a wondergoal. What did Lewandowski do in particular to deserve this award? You can't tell me scoring so many goals in a one-team driven league deserves a Ballon D'or. Especially since we're talking about Bayern who are 10 miles away in terms of quality from the second best team in that league. Tell me one good reason why Lewandowski deserves it over Messi for 2021.

OK, you don't get it, and still try to justify in your mind the award, purposefully avoiding any objective basis of judging.

I have explained it many times, but I will make it very clear to you:


The reason that Messi wins by a landslide if you switch their seasons, is that Lewa broke Miller's record and had in total 73 goals and assists in the calendar year,
which make his stats better than Messi's, (AND in a team that does NOT play for him, unlike Barca or Argentina)
If Messi had those stats, there is 0 CHANCE anyone else wins other than him.
Didn't we see the same in 2019 when Barca won only LaLiga, got humiliated in UCL, but Messi due to his individual stats 'won' the award?
Yes we did

What do we see now?
The 'criteria' flipped, and now, not the individual stats, but the trophies are important for the award, contrary to 2019 and many other years where individual performance was the metric.
And the irony -> including a mickey mouse cup, like Copa America, in the important trophies, as if it is the World Cup.
(Quiz: find any other Ballond d'Or winner where Copa America was used as an argument in favor of voting someone.
You won't find one...)
And the irony -> on the 'trophies criterion' Jorginho wins above everyone else hands down, because he won the 2 most important trophies of 2021: UCL and Euros, these trophies being trillion times more important than Copa America.
But he was ignored, because he was an 'average player'.

So you see the double standards at display:
Whenever MEssi or Ronaldo do exceptionally individually, we look that and vote according to that disregarding trophies.
Whenever they don't, but their teams (clubs and NT) win something, we switch to voting according to trophies and disregard individual performance.

But this season is the epitome of the joke this award is, because even the above is bent:
we have someone (Lewa) with best individual performance in the year,
and someone else (Jorginho) winning the most important trophies in the year

And somehow, the criterion now becomes both trophies and performances in such a way (like looking at Copa America or Copa del Rey LOL ) that would accommodate Messi and justify voting for him.

Just deal with what this laughable voting process is: A subjective fest where everyone votes the one he likes the most, and it happens that the last 15 years or so, people (and journalists) like MEssi and CR above everyone else.
Sorry to break it to you: that doesn't make them the best players of the year, no matter how much you want it, or how many vote so

 

[Valdario]

OK, you don't get it, and still try to justify in your mind the award, purposefully avoiding any objective basis of judging.

I have explained it many times, but I will make it very clear to you:


The reason that Messi wins by a landslide if you switch their seasons, is that Lewa broke Miller's record and had in total 73 goals and assists in the calendar year,
which make his stats better than Messi's, (AND in a team that does NOT play for him, unlike Barca or Argentina)
If Messi had those stats, there is 0 CHANCE anyone else wins other than him.
Didn't we see the same in 2019 when Barca won only LaLiga, got humiliated in UCL, but Messi due to his individual stats 'won' the award?
Yes we did

What do we see now?
The 'criteria' flipped, and now, not the individual stats, but the trophies are important for the award, contrary to 2019 and many other years where individual performance was the metric.
And the irony -> including a mickey mouse cup, like Copa America, in the important trophies, as if it is the World Cup.
(Quiz: find any other Ballond d'Or winner where Copa America was used as an argument in favor of voting someone.
You won't find one...)
And the irony -> on the 'trophies criterion' Jorginho wins above everyone else hands down, because he won the 2 most important trophies of 2021: UCL and Euros, these trophies being trillion times more important than Copa America.
But he was ignored, because he was an 'average player'.

So you see the double standards at display:
Whenever MEssi or Ronaldo do exceptionally individually, we look that and vote according to that disregarding trophies.
Whenever they don't, but their teams (clubs and NT) win something, we switch to voting according to trophies and disregard individual performance.

But this season is the epitome of the joke this award is, because even the above is bent:
we have someone (Lewa) with best individual performance in the year,
and someone else (Jorginho) winning the most important trophies in the year

And somehow, the criterion now becomes both trophies and performances in such a way (like looking at Copa America or Copa del Rey LOL ) that would accommodate Messi and justify voting for him.

Just deal with what this laughable voting process is: A subjective fest where everyone votes the one he likes the most, and it happens that the last 15 years or so, people (and journalists) like MEssi and CR above everyone else.
Sorry to break it to you: that doesn't make them the best players of the year, no matter how much you want it, or how many vote so

You still look at it subjectively and only present one way of looking at it. You're trying to tell me that if Lewandowski scored 30 goals in Bundesliga being the MVP, won the German Cup scoring 2 goals in the final and having 9 G/A in Euros scoring 2 free kicks in the process and winning it wouldn't win the Ballon D'or but Messi would if he had 73 G/A in a year like he didn't have those stats in the years before when he didn't win the Ballon D'or? I think Messi had just 8 G/A less than Lewandowski when the voting process was over, but I have to check those stats again.

 

[Birdy]

You still look at it subjectively and only present one way of looking at it. You're trying to tell me that if Lewandowski scored 30 goals in Bundesliga being the MVP, won the German Cup scoring 2 goals in the final and having 9 G/A in Euros scoring 2 free kicks in the process and winning it wouldn't win the Ballon D'or but Messi would if he had 73 G/A in a year like he didn't have those stats in the years before when he didn't win the Ballon D'or? I think Messi had just 8 G/A less than Lewandowski when the voting process was over, but I have to check those stats again.

No, you look at it subjectively, and still don't get it, even though I explained it very clearly.
There are double standards, and this season even these were bent just to give the award to Messi

Whenever Messi had those stats, he either 'won' the award or 'lost' it only to CR, the other popularity monster.
Lewa is a victim of not having the fanboy base of Messi and CR, as is Jorginho, as is Salah, KDB, as were Xavi, Iniesta, Ribery, and many many others in the past

 

[Valdario]

I know popularity plays a huge factor, but I'm talking about 2021 in specific right here.

If Leo Messi had 73 G/A and won just the Bundesliga playing as a poacher in a stacked Bayern team right now...

and Lewandowski had merely the same G/A playing as a playmaker, but won the Copa del Rey and scored a wondergoal in the final and had 9 G/A in the Copa America. I don't think you can tell me that Messi would've won. But maybe I am a bit subjective since I don't know how can anyone equally measure a striker and a playmaker purely by G/A. I just think Messi this year had a bigger impact on his teams than Lewa did. But that's just my humble opinion.

 

[Birdy]

Don't go to impact on their teams now, because you know there are numerous players out there that have or had a huge impact on their teams and how they play, who NEVER EVER got that recognition in a Ballon D' Or.
Just think of Xavi to begin with.

Impact means shit when they vote for Ballon D' Or, and they admit so.

 

[Rassvet]

I really don't understand this obsession people have with "objective criteria" for an inherently subjective award.

Like that dumb debate over "well Ronaldo scored more goals so he should have won in 2011 but Messi won it because he had more trophies so CR should have won it in 2012." That's not how it's supposed to work.

There are no "criteria" or at least there shouldn't be. It's an award for the best footballer. That's it. There's no way to completley objectify that. It's not the golden boot or the "which player won the CL" award.

Messi wasn't anything special in 2021, but neither was anyone else. Lewandowski wasn't anywhere near as good as in 2020. Still by far Messi's worst Ballon d'or year though. I don't think he particularly deserved it but at the same time no one particularly deserved it over him.

Also at Jorginho third. Kante was way better.

I don't think Lewy was actually worse in 2021 than 2020. The difference was just that he got injured and Bayern didn't win CL. Individually his performance were fairly equal.

 

[Rassvet]

One of the few Bundesliga matches I watched last season, as I was on a holiday in the snowy Rhodope mountains resting after 3 hours long walk.

Stuttgart played the game like some random 3. Bundesliga random team, completely amateurish stuff. Bayern in the second half decided to spare their historic rival the humiliation. It could have ended 12-0 if it was a big tie game.

Bundesliga is probably a higher level than La Liga in the past 1-2 years. The intensity is much higher there.

 

[Valdario]

Don't go to impact on their teams now, because you know there are numerous players out there that have or had a huge impact on their teams and how they play, who NEVER EVER got that recognition in a Ballon D' Or.
Just think of Xavi to begin with.

Impact means shit when they vote for Ballon D' Or, and they admit so.

I'm talking strictly about 2021. There have been players that are 20x better than Lewandowski which never got to the podium. Ballon D'or's criteria is a bit flawed, considering they have "player's career" as one of the factors in the voting. That eventually means players such as Messi and Ronaldo have a huge upper hand in such awards logically because other players cannot compete on that matter.