It's great that the football fraternity is celebrating arguably the beautiful game's greatest-ever player in Lionel Messi winning his record-extending eighth Ballon d'Or title, but that award deserved to go to Erling Haaland.
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What Messi did at the 2022 FIFA World Cup was otherworldly. Everybody counted him out when Argentina lost their opening match to Saudi Arabia, but all his performances thereafter were simply alien and even this description of what he was able to do in Qatar may be underselling some of the goals and assists he was pulling off in that sky blue and white jersey. Ultimately, he finally got his hands on what had previously proved an elusive trophy in his career, and consequently cemented his place, for many, at the summit of football's greatest-ever players list.
However, when he was given yet another Ballon d'Or trophy on Monday night, the handing over of the prize to the Rosario native felt sentimental above all else. It was as though football was paying homage to its greatest-ever custodian as opposed to actually giving it to him because his 2022/23 campaign was better than everyone else's. If the title was given to the best player in the world, then the 36-year-old should probably win it every season, but it isn't. It's premised on who had the best individual campaign throughout the season and of the people who were nominated, that honour belongs to the Scandinavian sensation, Haaland.
The Norwegian completed his move to Manchester City at the beginning of the 2022/23 season and immediately set himself apart from every player in world football. The most single-season goals in Premier League history (36), the most goals across all competitions for a Premier League club in a single season (52), the most goals in a Premier League debut season, the fastest player to score four hat-tricks in Premier League history (19 matches)... and it is also important to note that he accomplished all of this by the tender age of 23.
The aforementioned records are just some of the many he managed to set during his legendary debut campaign with the Citizens. A lot of the time, players can be unfortunate to be extremely prolific and not lift a single title but that was not the case for the Leeds-born attacker as he helped the Mancunians lift three of the biggest that were on offer: the FA Cup, the Premier League and the club's first-ever UEFA Champions League title.
It understandable that the Norway international may not be as aesthetically pleasing to watch as Messi, but the rate at which he was scoring in his debut campaign in arguably the most competitive league on the planet as well as in continental competition, at such a young age... him winning the 2023 Ballon d'Or should've been a formality.
Long before Messi got his hands on the World Cup, he was already being dubbed as the greatest to ever play the game, so I think that him triumphing at the biggest sporting event in the world was something that was expected of him. Granted, he did it in spectacular fashion, game in, game out, but what his Norwegian counterpart was able to accomplish, nobody has ever done before while playing in the English top flight.
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There have been egregious robberies before in the history of the Ballon d'Or, and while this may not be as bad as some of the others, it is still unbelievable that the young attacker was beaten to it by the ex-Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain superstar this time around.
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