Lionel Messi wins eighth Ballon d’Or
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Lionel Messi, at 36, won football’s most prestigious individual prize for the eighth time. This time, he received the Ballon d’Or, strictly speaking, for the achievements not of the year it was formally marked with, but of the previous one – that is, for his exploits at the Qatar World Cup.
The main hero of the ceremony held yesterday in Paris, which determined the heroes of 2023 in football, was the outstanding Argentine forward Lionel Messi. For the eighth time, he received the most valuable of the individual prizes, the Ballon d’Or, ahead of the Norwegian Erling Haaland of Manchester City and the Frenchman Kylian Mbappe of PSG in the voting. Messi also won it in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2019 and 2021. He has no equal in this sense; his closest pursuer, the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, has five trophies left.
Lionel Messi’s latest Ballon d’Or is remarkable for two reasons. The first is that until now, throughout the history of the competition, launched by France Football in 1956, it has invariably ended up in the hands of footballers playing in European leagues. Messi became the first to achieve it while performing on another continent. He finished last season in the French PSG, but in the summer he made an unexpected move to the American Inter Miami.
The second reason is the virtually indisputable fact that Lionel Messi’s success was brought not so much by the achievements of the current year as by the past. In this case, the date of awarding the Ballon d’Or was decisive. Previously, it took place in winter, that is, really after the end of the year. This decade, the organizers moved the ceremony – and therefore the summing up of the voting results – to the fall. In fact, respondents are already obliged to take into account what happened to the contenders for the trophy at the end of the year that preceded the “reporting one.”
In the case of Lionel Messi, the significance of the end of the year 2022 is colossal. The fact is that in November-December, after the previous winner of the Ballon d’Or, French striker Karim Benzema, had been determined, the World Cup took place in Qatar. And at the Qatari championship, Messi played not just brilliantly, but magically. He led his team to football’s most prized title, scoring seven goals in seven matches, including two in the final, in which the Argentines beat the French on penalties.
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