Why are Cristiano Ronaldo & Mo Salah the front-runners for the Ballon D Or and not Leo Messi
Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool's Mo Salah arethe front-runners for the Ballon D Or. Here is something for the European Press to go overboard and whoever wins the UCL finals will end up with all the individual awards. Absolutely deserved in every way.
This is the best thing that has happened in European football in the past 10 years.
Finally there is some justice to these comparisons -
A Striker vs Striker.
A true forward vs a true forward.
A UCL finalist vs. Another finalist.
A multi club player vs another multi club player.
Lionel Messi ! Who is that?
All Messi did this year was win a domestic double and that too because of FC Barcelona where he had been playing all his life. He had not proved himself in any other club. Also it seems, he disappeared (??) in all the big games.
It needs to be totally ignored that he managed to score 34 goals (with one match left) and provided 12 assists. Barca did not lose a single game in La Liga with Messi - it does not matter much because it was in La Liga. EPL is supposed to be a tougher league and UCL matters the most.
He seems to be good at holding on to the ball, passing, providing through balls and key passes. He is said to be okay with his dribbling, finishing and has been regularly scoring from Direct free-kicks.
Let take a look at some statistics across Europe for the 2017-18 :
La Liga
Scoring leader: Leo Messi (34)
Assist leader: Leo Messi, Fornals & Suárez (12)
Most key passes: Leo Messi (78)
Most dribbles: Leo Messi (185)
Premier League
Scoring leader: Mohammed Salah (32)
Assist leader: Kevin De Bruyne (16)
Most key passes: Kevin De Bruyne (90)
Most dribbles: Eden Hazard (165)
Serie A
Scoring leader: Ciro Immobile & Mauro Icardi (29)
Assist leader: Luis Alberto (14)
Most key passes: Lorenzo Insigne (92)
Most dribbles: Douglas Costa (106)
Bundesliga
Scoring leader: Robert Lewandowski (29)
Assist leader: Thomas Müller (14)
Most key passes: Philipp Max (67)
Most dribbles: Christian Pulisic (77)
Ligue 1
Scoring leader: Edinson Cavani (28)
Assist leader: Neymar Jr, Memphis Depay & Dimitri Payet (13)
Most key passes: Dimitri Payet (108)
Most dribbles: Neymar Jr (142)
Messi is too complete a player hence these incredible abilities are never a criteria for the awards (probably because the rest don’t have all of these skills). So we will just stick to goal scoring ability. But Messi is also the Golden Shoe winner this season (for a record 5th time). So that automatically disqualifies him from winning the other awards.
Then there was a small matter of hauling a wretched Argentina into the World Cup - which cannot be considered as anything noteworthy. By the way, if at all Argentina manages to do better than Portugal and Egypt, in the World Cup; then the exploits of players in the World Cup will not be considered as a criteria for these awards (but it will not be the case if the current front runners do well for their country in the World Cup )
Finally there is the bigger and perennial argument - He is so naturally talented that everything comes easily to him. He doesn't work as much as the other top guys. (Definitely those six packs were photo-shopped.)
He doesn't come anywhere near these great legends. He doesn't shout or gesture angrily. He is not a leader and he is lazy. He just ambles around, head down, scratching his beard and doesn’t seem to do much on the field.
And that’s why Messi is never a front runner for the Ballon d Or or World Player Award for this season and for the past 2 seasons.
Way to go Ronaldo and Salah. Whoever wins it, totally deserve it.
I am still wondering who is this Messi and why is he featured in this conversation? Also how the hell did he win 5 Ballon D Ors when there were other worthy front-runners every year. Should take them all back and give it to the others who were nominated during those years.
LOL!!!!!!
Looks like I am in love with Sarcasm.
I am still wondering who is this Messi and why is he featured in this conversation? Also how the hell did he win 5 Ballon D Ors when there were other worthy front-runners every year. Should take them all back and give it to the others who were nominated during those years.
LOL!!!!!!
Looks like I am in love with Sarcasm.
Image Credits - Google Images
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