Ballon d'Or 2023 | Haaland finishes 2nd

[PolarBearCub]

If you asked Haaland would he rather have the treble medals than Ballon D Whore I think you'd know the answer.........

 

[CC1]

Beat France and Holland On penalties.
Lost to Saudi Arabia.

Travesty gets even worse. Messi won it for emotional reasons - ie he’s on his way out!!

 

[Xhavenjoe]

Travesty gets even worse. Messi won it for emotional reasons - ie he’s on his way out!!

At least there will be a new name on it next year.

 

[Newman Noggs]

At least there will be a new name on it next year.

Ronaldo

 

[normskih]

Those voting clearly were swept away by the romance of Messi winning the World Cup. Any other year and Haaland wins it. But despite the fact he won the World Cup, they thought the Ballon D'or should go with it. Martinez winning the goalkeeping award was fair enough, he was pretty heroic for them. The pressure on Messi going into the WC and the fact he rose to the occasion means I kind of get it. But it's more of a lifetime achievement award as they know he'll never be back on that stage again. As an aside, I thought Martinez looked off his line for one of those penalty saves, re-take?

Let’s be honest, the commentators were swept away with Messi at the WC, as were some posters on this forum. I for one was honest enough to admit I wasn’t falling for the fawning over side passes etc that Joe Bloggs makes in the Championship but was called out for it because I wasn’t joining in with the rest. I said at the time when Sky sports used to show La Liga I used to watch Messi (and Ronaldo) regularly and be amazed at how brilliant he was at his peak, so it wasn’t like I was denying what a world class player he was. Everyone knows it SHOULD have gone to Haaland for this season’s achievements, maybe a lifetime achievement award is a category that’s needed for players like Messi, Ronaldo, who, let’s face it players that rarely come round every generation let alone two in one generation.

 

[Blu1]

Unlucky haaland but I do understand messi winning it. Haaland & Bellingham will be fighting this out over the next few years

 

[CC1]

At least there will be a new name on it next year.

As Jan Ffortof has just said. How does a player better winning PL 3rd consecutive time; win the treble with his club; win CL; score more goals than anyone else etc etc

THIS WAS HAALAND’S YEAR so Balon D’or is now officially another football corruption

I fear for the game. There’s a lot of brown envelopes still getting passed about.

 

[trevorriley]

farce and a joke, the award holds little value in the most prestige league in the world ( prem )

 

[CC1]

Let’s be honest, the commentators were swept away with Messi at the WC, as were some posters on this forum. I for one was honest enough to admit I wasn’t falling for the fawning over side passes etc that Joe Bloggs makes in the Championship but was called out for it because I wasn’t joining in with the rest. I said at the time when Sky sports used to show La Liga I used to watch Messi (and Ronaldo) regularly and be amazed at how brilliant he was at his peak, so it wasn’t like I was denying what a world class player he was. Everyone knows it SHOULD have gone to Haaland for this season’s achievements, maybe a lifetime achievement award is a category that’s needed for players like Messi, Ronaldo, who, let’s face it players that rarely come round every generation let alone two in one generation.

Good suggestion - lifetime achievement award would have solved the problem that Haaland’s brilliance caused this year. Clearly he should have won it - but they had to let Messi sign off with his 8th

 

[I'm With Stupid]

There's a lot of money involved in winning the Ballon d'Or, so it's not a surprise to see it go to the players with the biggest marketing team. Let's not pretend there's any honesty surrounding this sort of thing. If it has FIFA's name on it and can be voted for, it can be bought. (For the record, Ronaldo won it that year despite winning nothing and scoring 10 fewer than Messi).

Even all of this "of course Messi was always going to win" shit in the lead up to the vote. Why? If it was based on footballing merit and people were free to vote for whoever they chose, why would it obviously be Messi? There are a number of players that had an equally good or better season. But it's all part of the media-led publicity campaign that Messi and Ronaldo's teams have been expert at for over 15 years now.