If the newest leaks are true, their votes are almost even. Just tilted by a few points. I think if Lewa doesn't win this won, he should get the 2020 one in retrospect. That season ended up being finished anyway.
Ballon d'Or 2021 | Lewandowski robbed again
- Thread starter Samid
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Barca are comfortably worse this season without Messi. Big drop off and they are just 10 points off the bottom of the league.
If you include assists in the 35 league games Messi played for Barca last year he sounds for nearly 50% of anything Barca had to do with scoring or assisting last year. To downplay that is absurd.
Suarez is getting older otherwise they would have kep him. Just like Messi is getting older and his output is decreasing but not by much as well as the Barca side was pretty average and had a crap defense and they had crap managers. It was their worst finish in ages, but are you going to blame Messi or going to put some blame on the rest of Barca team as well?
Things aren't really static. We've yet to see we're Barcelona will finish this season. They are currently 10th. It's just a fact that Barcelona were nowhere near a title challenge untill Messi picked up his form.
Messi's being a front runner is both because of his 2021 form for Barca and his Copa win. If Benzema had a awesome Euro, he could have been favourite and so could have Mpabbe.
Granted that Ronaldo is almost 37, we've had our worst start for quite a while now. Are you going to blame Ronaldo or do you think the manager and the rest of the squad has to shoulder the blame as well?
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As far as I can see the bookies still have Lewandowski as favourite. I trust the bookies more than anyone to know.
the bookies are basing it on what the public bets. They set the odds initially and then adjust according to how the public is betting. Tons of people put big money on Lewa after the initial leaks.
I’m not saying Messi winning it is done and dusted, we have all kinds of leaks happening but just that the bookies aren’t always the best barometer once the public starts betting
Bookies had Van Dijk the clear favourite right up to close to the announcement last time.
Messi was the bookies favourite right until the leaks had Lewa winning, then he was the fave, turned back to Messi at places like Skybet(Messi now 1/10) after yesterday's leaks.
Bookies odds on things like this can be driven by bets placed on an individual as well.
But the title challenge was not good. Barcelona only won 4 out of their last 8 games. They finished seven points behind the champions. Why are we giving credit to a completely failed title challenge?
The 'title challenge' lasted from the beginning of January to the end of March. That was when Barcelona had good form, a stretch of 13 games in which they got 12 wins and 1 draw. But then they entered bad form: 10 games, 5 wins, 3 defeats in April and May. Zero goals against Barcelona or Atletico, the title challengers.
During these three months of good form, they got their asses kicked at home by PSG, 1-4. Then away, Messi missed a penalty.
I wouldn't give him a Balon D'Or either. He's way past his prime.
Because Messi's form was the reason they had any chance at any point at all. They had to sack their average manager mid-season to hire another manager mid season. There is only so much 1 player can do. Especially a forward can't salvage a defense being battered by PSG.
I agree that of Messi's many seasons this wasnt his best but even his lower level is on par with the worlds best.
The counter to that is when the entire attack is built around one player, how much are they then getting extra credit compared to one like Lewa, who leads the line but not everything will have to go through him.
If Barca finish in a similar position to last season, will that change your mind to his importance there? They’re winning today and despite the bad press they’re not actually that far from being in the race.
I think that you know that I am a great admirer of Messi and think that he would have probably deserved every ballon d‘or since 2008 or so. But when strictly looking at 2021 i feel that Lewandowski deserves it. Messi basically hasn’t played since July.
Its a burden having to be the teams main playmaker and goalscorer unlike pure strikers. I can only judge Messi by his own performances. Every season is different. United won the league in 2013 and then finished 7th in 2014 with the same squad. Personally i think Xavi is the ideal manager for Barcelona and I believe he can get the most out of the squad they have. If Depay scores 30 la liga goals maybe he should be a candidate for the next Ballon d'or.
We choked a 3-0 lead for the first time in the club’s history within the same game. We are on pace for our worst finish in 45 years.
They should give the 2020 one to Lewa and 2021 to Messi.
Why? For what?
His individual stats were better than any player on the planet, including Ronaldo,Benzema, and Lewandowski,Mbappe,etcWhy? For what?
I thought the ballon D'or was about the best individual player.
For being the best player. Sorry if it bothers.Why? For what?
Nonsense on both counts. He hasn't even scored a single fecking league goal this season
The counter to that is that he didn't score in big games apart from PSG where they lost and he screwed up his penalty.
HIs 2021 overall has still been brilliant.Nonsense on both counts. He hasn't even scored a single fecking league goal this season
Well, it's Messi. Of course he's brilliant. Best footballer of all time.
Still, he's not had better individual stats in 2021 than Lewandowski, unless with stats you mean, I don't know, xGbuildup @Zehner
And he surely doesn't deserve the award in a year when his main contribution was financially ruining his club.
That's only 3 months of the year, the other 9 months his stats(goals+assists+pre-assists) speak for themselves.Nonsense on both counts. He hasn't even scored a single fecking league goal this season
They should give an individual award for the best player of the CL winning team(just like World Cup has its own individual awards) , so we stop with this non-sense of "give Ballon only to CL winners"
spot on
Let’s examine this throwaway claim shall we? In the 2011 Ballon D’Or, Luis Suarez finished 6th in the BDO voting. This placing must have been entirely based on winning the Copa America (not as the top scorer or top assister like Messi, but merely as the best player) because he scored 7 goals in 13 matches for Ajax in 2010-11 (missed much of the season due to a ban for succumbing to his vampire tendencies), 4 goals in 13 for Liverpool in the 2010-11 season (he moved there in Feb) and 11 league goals in a full 2011-12 campaign for Liverpool (much of which happened after the 2011 voting took place, poor as that return was).
Now you take away the Copa America win and tell me how Luis Suarez deserved a 6th place finish that year? He wouldn’t have made the top 50. The year before he wasn’t in the top 20 and the year after he wasn’t in the top 20.
Diego Forlan also finished 7th, which is the only time he’s got anywhere near that kind of rarefied air, save for the previous year when he finished 5th due to his performances in the World Cup. He scored 10 goals for Atletico Madrid in the 2010-11 season and 2 goals for Inter Milan in the 2011-12 season. So how did he finish 7th? And these are strikers we’re talking about.
Now let’s look at Alexi Sanchez. He won the Copa America with Chile in 2015 (again, not the top scorer etc) and finished 10th in the Ballon D’Or, which is his highest ever by a long way. You think that happened because he scored 16 PL goals for Arsenal?
The point is that the Copa America matters, let’s stop pretending that it doesn’t because it’s not a European competition. Messi’s case is based on a record breaking performance in it plus his usual fantastic club stats and performances (way ahead of Suarez in 2011 and Sanchez in 2015) which people take for granted now.
Yes it’s a calendar year award. How many games has Messi played for PSG v the number he played for Barca this year? How many full appearances? Anyone with a brain can see that the consideration is going to be weighted towards the Barca performances and the international tournament in the summer.
Winning the Copa America probably tilts this to Messi, even though it would be nice to see Lewa get the nod.
It should easily be Messi's for his performance at Copa. If it's correctly awarded to him, that puts daylight between him and his nearest challengers.
This argument sounds credible until you think a little bit about what it means to place 6th or lower.
Suarez placing 6th meant he got 1.48% of the vote.
Forlan placing 7th meant he got 1.43% of the vote.
Sanchez placing 10th meant he got 1.10% of the vote.
You are right, the Copa America matters. It matters for less than 1.5% of the vote, which is the square root of jack shit. You can't get even remotely close to winning the Balon D'Or with these numbers.
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Messi shouldn't win it with his horrible start to the season.
If I see Lewy I see a player that does not just work for his stats but does a lot of work against the ball, too. Even if he would have the same stats that counts for more for me.
You've lost Messi, Suarez, Griezmann, and through injury have been largely unable to play Dembele, Aguero, and Braithwaite. Your attack has been withered down to almost nothing. You've got Depay and a teenager who just came back from a year-long injury.
And yet you've scored 19 goals in 12 matches. At that pace, you'd score more goals than 4th placed Sevilla did last season, about the same amount as 5th to 7th, and only 7 goals less than 1st and 2nd.
Hardly the best season for Messi's standards, but not unworthy either.
Lewa
Lewa
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That pace won’t hold, and for goal differential we are 6th best in the league and fading. Suarez left two seasons ago. We are woeful in attack, midfield and defense
And this argument sounds credible until you actually read what I said. The players outlined got Ballon D’Or votes despite doing next to nothing in their club seasons. As I demonstrated to you.
Now let’s look at another example of a Copa America winner who dominated the tournament and also had a great club year in Europe:
1997: Ballon D’Or winner Ronaldo
Copa America Winner: Brazil
Best player: Ronaldo
Goals: 47 in 49 for Barca in 1996-7, 34 in 47 for Inter 1997-8 (obviously much of this took place after the 1997 voting)
Trophies other than the Copa America in 1997: Copa Del Rey, Cup Winners Cup.
Let’s try another example:
1999 Ballon D’Or winner: Rivaldo
Copa America winner: Brazil
Best player: Rivaldo
Top scorer: Rivaldo
Goals: 28 for Barca in 98-99
Trophies other than Copa America: La Liga.
So I guess it must be worth a bit more than the ‘square root of Jack shit,’ as you so eloquently put it.
Doing well in the Copa is not enough if you score 2 goals in a season like Forlan did or get suspended for biting someone like Suarez did. But if you have a great year all round and also have a record-breaking Copa, it matters a lot.
Hope this helps.
The award is not for the 2020/2021 season but for the calendar year 2021. Therefore it should be awarded in January, but that is another issue.
He didn't have a great year all round.
You have simply decided that his second half of the year at PSG (which is part of the "year all round") shouldn't count, because it's inconvenient to you.
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Messi's Copa is not impressive. It's more amazing that he's only won it once in 6 attempts. It's basically a two or three team competition. Argentina have appeared in 29 finals and 36 semi finals! In the past 10 editions there's been 1 edition that didn't feature either Brazil, Uruguay or Argentina in the final. You then have to go back to 1979 until one of those 3 didn't appear in the final. Obviously it means something in terms of South American rivalry but in pure sporting terms it's not a competition with a high value.
Yes, you are discovering that winning trophies is actually hard, and not as easy as it looks on paper just by comparing the quality of players between teams.
Didn't Portugal with Figo,Deco,Maniche,Rui Costa, Pauleta,Ronaldo, and Carvahlo lost a final at home against Greece(a side that didn't even qualify for WC 2002 and 2006)?
If Messi had won it 6 times that would have been amazing, but winning it once is also amazing because that just proves how hard it is.
It may not be impressive when we're talking about his GOAT status, but it's quite impressive when we're talking about this year's Ballon d'Or. Not that I think that he should win it though, I think that even at the end of last season I would've still given it to Lewandowski and this season puts an actually decent gap between the two, seeing as Messi is barely even visible and Lewandowski is tearing both Bundesliga and CL up in his usual fashion.
Sure but the European Championships is a higher level than the Copa and it is played a lot less regularly. There has been 4 Copa tournaments in the past 6 years?! There has been 16 editions of the European Championships which is one less than the number of Copa tournaments that Argentina have won, although the Copa goes back a lot longer. There are 12 European sides in the FIFA top 20 rankings whilst only 5 from South America. That's generous to South America too given the way these things are calculated.
This... and there is less rolling around and dramatics in the European Championships as well.