Ballon d'Or 2021 | Lewandowski robbed again

Sphaero

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The talk that he ‘would have won it’ in 2020 is pointless as they cancelled it for no reason + I would say he maybe would have had a 10% chance of winning it against Messi back then too. At club level Messi had basically the same season back then and Lewa had a worse season despite winning CL. Messi would have walked it in 2020 too and he’s absolutely walking it in 2022 unless Ronaldo wins CL or WC.
In the Bundesliga? Sure, hard to not be worse than in a season when he broke Müllers iconic scoring record. He still scored 34 goals and 5 assists in 31 games, though. In the CL however? No chance. Lewandowskis CL campaign 2020 was ridiculous. He scored 15 goals and 6 assists in around 850 minutes play time resulting in scoring on average every 40 minutes. His scores in the KO stages alone were 5 goals and 6 assists which included him dismantling Chelsea pretty much all by himself. He had the far stronger international showing compared to Messi in 2020.
 

Brophs

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If there's one positive in all of this, it's that Ronaldo will be absolutely fuming. His drafts folder will be utter carnage right now.
 

the_cliff

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No one cares. You pulled this metric out of a toilet, because it is shit.
Well like my metric you definitely pulled that post out of the toilet. :lol:

So instead of talking shit, what do you consider a meaningful metric to constantly and consistently use to pick a Balon D'or winner ? G+A ? MOTMs ? Eye test ? Team trophies ?
 

KeanoMagicHat

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Sixth place for Ronaldo, does anyone think he's in the best 6 players in the world?
Lewandowski's fans are just bitter that their hero didn't get the award by putting 5 past every tinpot Bundesliga opposition.

Guaranteed to win the league title every year, Lewandowski starts every season without any competitors for top goal scorer.

I still can't forget the year Lewandowski hilariously lost out to Aubameyang for top Bundesliga goal scorer despite being part of a far superior title-winning squad. Did Lewandowski blame himself? No. He blamed his Bayern teammates.

And now he's blaming the Balon D'or organizers for a grand conspiracy of not giving him what he thinks he deserves. It's always somebody else's fault isn't it for Lewandowski?

Face it, he's not any better than a vast array of strikers out there, including the likes of Mo Salah. If Mo Salah couldn't win it, he sure as hell doesn't deserve to win it.
Terrible post in so many ways. He has 29 goals in his last 21 European games and won a CL in the same time.
 

KirkDuyt

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Why don't they just change it to a season's price. Obviously only the first 6 months are taken into account anyway..
 

Oly Francis

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In the Bundesliga? Sure, hard to not be worse than in a season when he broke Müllers iconic scoring record. He still scored 34 goals and 5 assists in 31 games, though. In the CL however? No chance. Lewandowskis CL campaign 2020 was ridiculous. He scored 15 goals and 6 assists in around 850 minutes play time resulting in scoring on average every 40 minutes. His scores in the KO stages alone were 5 goals and 6 assists which included him dismantling Chelsea pretty much all by himself. He had the far stronger international showing compared to Messi in 2020.
There's no doubt in anybody's mind other then Sarni's that Lewa would have won it last year. He's just inventing a narrative.
 

saivet

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The crazy thing is Ronaldo got the same amount of goals as Benema and more goals than Messi in 2021.
 

PSV

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Sixth place for Ronaldo, does anyone think he's in the best 6 players in the world?
To be fair he single-handedly pulled Portugal through in a group that consisted of Germany and France only to be smacked by Belgium (rank 1) in the quarterfinals. Not that I personally would put him even top 10, but there is at least some merit to it.

I don't really care for the whole Messi/CR7 ordeal, but I'd imagine if you put the latter in a 10-team tournament that included the likes of Romania, Ireland, Bosnia and Israel they'd be contenders for every single one.

I honestly think it should have gone to an Italian if it wasn't meant for Lewandowski. Copa America to me is the Conference League of continental tournaments so should carry no merit.
 

bakalhau

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Huge credit to Messi for saying out loud he hopes France Football gives out the 2020 award to Lewa.
 

Sarni

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There's no doubt in anybody's mind other then Sarni's that Lewa would have won it last year. He's just inventing a narrative.

No way to prove it but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have. They apparently did say 2020 was considered in this years award, and Messi came out on top over both seasons.

There was no reason to cancel 2020 award anyway. All competitions bar Ligue 1 were finished.
 

KeanoMagicHat

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To be fair he single-handedly pulled Portugal through in a group that consisted of Germany and France only to be smacked by Belgium (rank 1) in the quarterfinals. Not that I personally would put him even top 10, but there is at least some merit to it.

I don't really care for the whole Messi/CR7 ordeal, but I'd imagine if you put the latter in a 10-team tournament that included the likes of Romania, Ireland, Bosnia and Israel they'd be contenders for every single one.

I honestly think it should have gone to an Italian if it wasn't meant for Lewandowski. Copa America to me is the Conference League of continental tournaments so should carry no merit.
Single-handedly, how? They finished 3rd in a 4-team group and got 1 point from the Germany and France games!
 

Sarni

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In the Bundesliga? Sure, hard to not be worse than in a season when he broke Müllers iconic scoring record. He still scored 34 goals and 5 assists in 31 games, though. In the CL however? No chance. Lewandowskis CL campaign 2020 was ridiculous. He scored 15 goals and 6 assists in around 850 minutes play time resulting in scoring on average every 40 minutes. His scores in the KO stages alone were 5 goals and 6 assists which included him dismantling Chelsea pretty much all by himself. He had the far stronger international showing compared to Messi in 2020.
Yeah, he was injured in 2021 KO though which cost Bayern against PSG. They apparently did consider both years in 2021 award too, so considering Messi was not significantly better than him in 2021 (he wasn’t at all IMO), the consensus is probably they were similar level in 2020 too or some shit.

I’m sure Messi had more completed dribbles in the 8-2 game too.
 

Suedesi

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I wouldn't be surprised if one of the conditions for Messi joining PSG was to win the Balon D'Or. We all know it's such a political award and France Football must be dying to lend some respectability to Ligue 1. Messi is Messi, but he won FckAll of relevance with his club; and suddenly Copa America which has been irrelevant all these years gained importance this particular year - because it was played in front of empty stadiums probably :lol:

Mbooppie will win it over and over as soon as Messi/Ronaldo are gone. French player playing for Real Madrid, forget it.
 

crossy1686

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Wait, what!? Messi won it!? Wow that thing is fecking corrupt. They put way too much weight on internationals. It’s like when they gave it Cannavaro for having a good World Cup.

I’d also love to know how many palms got greased by the PSG board to make this happen.
 

Iker Quesadillas

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Well like my metric you definitely pulled that post out of the toilet. :lol:
So instead of talking shit, what do you consider a meaningful metric to constantly and consistently use to pick a Balon D'or winner ? G+A ? MOTMs ? Eye test ? Team trophies ?
A meaningful metric requires a little rigor.

When people mention these things like "Messi had more dribbles than Lewandowski," do they actually know what the correlation between dribbles and game outcomes is? How much variance it has? How it is affected by position, gameplay, tactics, league? Do they have a list that sorts 'dribbles' and can compare the names there to at least an idea of who the 'best players in the world' are, and see if there is a match? Or is simply a number that was found to be bigger for one player than the other? This is why people get annoyed at this use of 'stats', it's totally arbitrary.

There isn't a single metric you can always use to pick a Balon D'Or winner because they all have various biases you'd have to 'correct' for. But I can suggest that when one guys breaks his league's goalscoring record, and the other guy is the top goalscorer with the second lowest goals tally in the last decade, they probably didn't have the same level of performance.
 

Oranges038

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There's no real metric here - it's an award for the player who the people with a vote think has been the best.

It just so happens that most of those people think Messi was the best player this year, despite only playing for 8 months and disappearing for the last three.

It's just a popularity contest, it has no merit whatsoever.
 

Andersonson

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Messi had a bit worse season than what we're used to and he's still on top on every stat. The mas is an insane footballer
 

the_cliff

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A meaningful metric requires a little rigor.

When people mention these things like "Messi had more dribbles than Lewandowski," do they actually know what the correlation between dribbles and game outcomes is? How much variance it has? How it is affected by position, gameplay, tactics, league? Do they have a list that sorts 'dribbles' and can compare the names there to at least an idea of who the 'best players in the world' are, and see if there is a match? Or is simply a number that was found to be bigger for one player than the other? This is why people get annoyed at this use of 'stats', it's totally arbitrary.

There isn't a single metric you can always use to pick a Balon D'Or winner because they all have various biases you'd have to 'correct' for. But I can suggest that when one guys breaks his league's goalscoring record, and the other guy is the top goalscorer with the second lowest goals tally in the last decade, they probably didn't have the same level of performance.
Even if the dribbles don't contribute to game outcomes, there's no questioning the fact that Messi is a better dribbler than Lewa. Usually the amount of dribbles completed and successful dribbles is a metric used to come to the conclusion that one player is a better dribbler than the other. Dribbling contributes to one player being better at football than the other player, just like passing, first touch, creativity, shooting etc. Now if one player is better statistically at all these things, it's fairly easy to deduce the fact that he's a better player. Which is what the Balon D'or recognises, the best football player in the world. Not the guy who scored the most goals.

But since you want to get all technical and say there are biases, what about the level of the majority of the opponents of the said league ? is that not a bias ?

The fact of the matter is simple, Lewa's only claim to the balon D'or is scoring more goals, nothing else helps his case which is why it's not a robbery. Personally, I can see Lewa's argument and I can see Messi's argument but the fact that people are making it out to be some big 'robbery' is completely wrong.

You're a Madrid fan, Zidane is undoubtedly one of the best midfielders and players of all time and I'm sure you agree, is Lampard a better 'player' because he scored more goals ? Or is Zidane better because he's better at literally every other aspect of being a footballer ?
 
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tomaldinho1

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There's no real metric here - it's an award for the player who the people with a vote think has been the best.

It just so happens that most of those people think Messi was the best player this year, despite only playing for 8 months and disappearing for the last three.

It's just a popularity contest, it has no merit whatsoever.
I don't think anyone on here actually cares about it unless they're one of the nutters who populate the Ronaldo/Messi thread. The fact Iniesta/Xavi never won just highlights how poorly it is run - Euros, World cup, Euros (plus obviously everything Messi won in those years) and they were both nominated what, twice?
 

lawliet354

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Reading some of the posts here, yikes. Feels like reading twitter with so many salt and fanboys fighting each other. It's just people moving goalposts after goalposts after goalposts to vouch for their favorite
 
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Oranges038

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I don't think anyone on here actually cares about it unless they're one of the nutters who populate the Ronaldo/Messi thread. The fact Iniesta/Xavi never won just highlights how poorly it is run - Euros, World cup, Euros (plus obviously everything Messi won in those years) and they were both nominated what, twice?
It was something like that. Iniesta/Xavi were definitley worthy in a couple of those years.
 

rimaldo

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another year that poacher keith is completely overlooked. 27 goals in the 2nd’s conference division, despite missing 4 months of the year with gout. it’s just a shitty popularity contest.
 

Morty_

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Think Messi might win it next year too btw, CL-final or a decent run with Argentina could be enough imo.
 

Wolf1992

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To be fair he single-handedly pulled Portugal through in a group that consisted of Germany and France only to be smacked by Belgium (rank 1) in the quarterfinals. Not that I personally would put him even top 10, but there is at least some merit to it.

I don't really care for the whole Messi/CR7 ordeal, but I'd imagine if you put the latter in a 10-team tournament that included the likes of Romania, Ireland, Bosnia and Israel they'd be contenders for every single one.
We are talking about Portugal buddy.

They literally lost a final against Greece (which only remotely known players back then were a forward from Werder Bremen and defender from Roma) in Lisbon.

People understimate how much of a choke that was cause Portugal isn't a big team, but imagine having Figo, Cristiano,Maniche,Deco, Ricardo Carvalho, and losing a final to freakin Greece at home.

That's worse than Argentina losing to Chile on penalties, at least Chile played good football, not the shithousery and completely eye-sore that Greece was.
 
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bond19821982

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The tears here is :lol:

If Lewa didn't win it last year, then he isn't winning it this year. Especially on an year when Messi won an international cup, had more goals and assist , moved to France and signed for PSG.

Also, Lewa scoring for fun in Bundesliga isn't considered as a great achievement either. Sorry no offense meant to Bundesliga.
 

Morty_

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The tears here is :lol:

If Lewa didn't win it last year, then he isn't winning it this year. Especially on an year when Messi won an international cup, had more goals and assist , moved to France and signed for PSG.

Also, Lewa scoring for fun in Bundesliga isn't considered as a great achievement either. Sorry no offense meant to Bundesliga.
If you are going to post, at least keep it to reality, is that too much to ask?