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Some of the most famous names in football’s long history have won the Ballon d’Or, the sport’s most prestigious individual award, just once. There is only one award given to the names of George Best, Zinedine Zidane and Eúsebio. Brazilian great striker Ronaldo had two wins. Arguably the greatest European player in history, Johan Cruyff has three.
After Monday night, Lionel Messi now has seven.
Messi, 34, has effectively retained his most recent trophy in 2019 – arguably, the award was not awarded by French Football last year due to the coronavirus pandemic – after a long awaited year for an international honor. win the Copa America He left Argentina and Barcelona, the club where he spent his entire career, for Paris St.-Germain.
“It’s amazing to be here again.” Two years ago I thought this was the last time. The important thing was to win the Copa America.”
Coming to the premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in a shimmering tuxedo – an appearance resembling his three teenage sons – Messi typically spoke softly as he accepted the award: he praised his former Barcelona teammates, his Argentine nationals, and vowed to fight PSG for new trophies. did
Messi defeated his closest rival, Bayern Munich’s Polish forward Robert Lewandowski, in a vote by 176 journalists and conducted by France Football. rewards the prize (almost) every year. Many experts said that Lewandowski deserved it in 2020, when the prize was not distributed, because glitches in the organizers’ football calendar made judgment impossible. Messi said he accepted this position.
“I think he deserved to win the award last year,” Messi told Lewandowski from the stage, adding that it was “an honor” to fight him for the highest honors in 2021.
Brazilian-born Italian midfielder Jorginho finished third in a season’s trophy won by club team Chelsea. Champions League and Italy raised European Championship. Real Madrid and France forward Karim Benzema finished fourth, and Jorginho’s Chelsea midfield partner N’Golo Kanté finished fifth.
While not quite a year by Messi’s standards – Barcelona were beaten for the Spanish title by Atlético Madrid and eliminated by PSG in the last 16 rounds of last season’s Champions League – his success and attention in Argentina have come to the fore. After winning six Ballons d’Ors in Barcelona, moving to France was enough to convince the judges of the award.
The fact that Messi has never won an international trophy with his national team has always been held against him in debates over whether it warrants his status as football’s greatest player of all time. After all, his rivals, along with their countries and clubs, triumphed: Pelé led Brazil to three World Cups, Diego Maradona inspired Argentina once, and Cristiano Ronaldo helped Portugal claim the European Championship in 2016.
After Angel Di María handed Argentina their first international trophy since 1993, beating host Brazil in the final, Messi finally put that idea to rest at the Copa América this summer.
His seven Ballons d’Or points now surpass him by twice as much as his great rival Ronaldo: the Portuguese striker is at five, but hasn’t won the award since 2017 and is 36 years old, two years older than Messi. .
Finishing sixth in the voting, Ronaldo did not attend Monday’s ceremony, but was not in competition with Messi. On his Instagram account, Ronaldo angrily reacted to a comment made by France Football’s editor-in-chief Pascal Ferré in an interview with The New York Times about the award’s prestige.
“Ronaldo has one goal: to retire with more Ballons d’Or than Messi,” said Ferré. “I know because he told me that.”
Ronaldo – despite suggest as much as other interviews – He denied making this comment, saying “Ferré lied, he used my name to promote himself and promote the publication he was working on”.
The women’s Ballon d’Or award was won by Alexia Putellas, 27-year-old midfielder who captained Barcelona’s conquering women’s team. His victory cleanly swept last season’s awards after leading the Barcelona side to the Champions League title and a league and cup pair in Spain, and was subsequently honored as European player of the year.
Its main rivals for the Ballon d’Or are mostly familiar faces: Barcelona had become the first women’s team to record five nominations in a single year, and two of the Putellas’ teammates – Jennifer Hermoso, who was runner-up, and Lieke Martens, who was fifth – were in the top five in the voting.
“It’s a bit emotional and very special, to be honest,” Putellas said. “It’s great to be here with all my teammates, especially since we’ve been through and experienced a lot together in the past year.”
“It’s an individual award,” he added, “but football is a team sport.”
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