Haaland Robbed of Ballon D’or?

Sub edited by James McLeish

On the 30^th October 2023 arguably the best player football has ever seen, Lionel Messi, collected his eighth Ballon D’or for his individual performances in the 22/23 season. But as always, this result sparked a fair bit of controversy amongst football fans across the world, with the topics ‘rigged’ and ‘robbery’ trending within the football category of Twitter as soon as Lionel Messi was announced as the winner.

So did Messi deserve the award? Or should it have gone to someone else? We will be delving through all that occurred in the last year of football between those who favourites for the Ballon D’or to answer these questions.

The Ballon D’or is the most prestigious individual award in the world of football and is awarded to a player based on their individual performance, decisive character, class and sense of fair play and all these factors are deemed to have more importance than the number of trophies won, as trophies are awarded to a team and not just necessarily because of an individual players performance. (Marca, 2023)

Lionel Messi’s individual performances at a domestic level were not as impressive last season as they have been in previous years with 16 goals and 16 assists in 32 Ligue 1 appearances and four goals plus four assists in seven Champions League matches for PSG . Not a bad season whatsoever, but completely overshadowed by Erling Haaland’s goal tally in his first season at Manchester City. Who managed to rack up 36 goals in 35 Premier league appearances breaking the record for most goals scored in a PL season, eight Premier league assists and 12 goals plus an assist in 11 Champions league games for City.

The Norwegian new boy’s 52 goals in all competitions for Manchester City helped see his team win not only their first ever Champions League trophy but also the Premier League and FA Cup title, securing the second ever European treble won by an English side, joining Manchester United who had won it in the 1998/99 season. Winning the treble, Premier League golden boot, Champions League golden boot, UEFA mens player of the year and the Gerd Muller trophy for striker of the year was definitely enough to make Haaland one of the favourites, if not a worthy candidate to win the award, but that doesn’t mean that no one else deserved it…

Five Manchester City players were named in the top ten of the official Ballon D’or power ranking for last season, suggesting that City’s success didn’t just come down to Haaland’s performances, but was a great all-round performance from the entire team. Due to the Ballon d’or voting criteria evolving around individual performances, It was only right that players like Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi joined the conversation due to their astounding performances during the 2022 World Cup.

Not only was Kylian Mbappe Ligue 1’s top scorer last season with 26 goals to his name, but his fantastic performances with France at the 2022 World Cup, including his hattrick in the final, saw him take home the golden boot. (eight goals in seven games).

The real stand out performer at the World cup however was Lionel Messi, the man who captained Argentina to World Cup glory in style. Messi scored seven goals and assisted three and broke several world cup records due to his time in Qatar, being the first player in history to be a 2x Golden ball winner, the player with the most World cup MOTM awards, as well as the player to receive the most MOTM awards in a singular World Cup with five! Captaining and carrying your country to World Cup glory in this fashion is definitely Ballon D’or worthy.