Seven-time winner Lionel Messi misses out on Ballon d’Or nomination
Seven-time winner Lionel Messi misses out on Ballon d’Or nomination: Seven times the charm of Paris Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi’s disappointing performance in his first year at Paris Saint-Germain cost him a spot on the 30-player shortlist for the most prestigious football award of the year, and he had to pay a heavy price for it.
One of the three finalists for the women’s award is England player Lucy Bronze, who finished second in the competition last year. England’s women’s team just won the European Championship.
Messi, who triumphed in this category in the previous year, had been included in the list of nominees every year since 2006 and has been a consistent presence in the top three every year since 2007, with the exception of 2018.
But Messi, who is 35 years old, will not be eligible for the honor in 2022 because he recently moved from Barcelona to the capital of France.
Because of a recent rule change, the Ballon d’Or will no longer be awarded to the player who is regarded as the best throughout the course of a single year. This is another factor that has worked against the Argentine superstar.
Instead, it is determined by the nominees’ overall performance throughout the season, taking into account both their “individual performances” and their “decisive and remarkable character,” as stated in the criteria.
Following his departure from Barcelona in the summer of 2021, Messi was unable to leave his mark on a Paris Saint-Germain club that was anxious to win the Champions League.
Real Madrid, who went on to win the tournament, knocked the eventual champions from France out in the round of 16.
As a whole, Messi was only able to score 11 goals for PSG, which was not enough to convince the France Football magazine, which is in charge of awarding the Ballon d’Or. This year’s ceremony will take place in Paris on October 17, and the winner will be announced there.
Neymar, another player for PSG, did not make the cut despite having a successful season in which he scored 13 goals in 28 matches.
The remainder of the list of nominees does not include very many unexpected names.
Karim Benzema, a French international striker who plays for Real Madrid, is the prohibitive favorite to win after being a key contributor to the club’s 14th Champions League championship.
The European championship ended with him having scored 15 goals.
Raymond Kopa (1958), Michel Platini (1983, 1984, and 1985), Jean-Pierre Papin (1991), and Zinedine Zidane are the other four Frenchmen who have won the World Cup. Benzema has a good chance of following in their footsteps (1998).
During the 2021–2022 campaign, Benzema led Madrid to the Liga championship by scoring 44 goals in 46 games and making 46 starts.
The 34-year-old forward has now scored 324 goals for the Spanish giants, reaching that milestone with his goal in Wednesday’s 2-0 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in the European Super Cup.
That put him in second place on the all-time record for the club, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo, who has 450 points to his name. He had previously been in the first place.
“He is one of the leading candidates for the Ballon d’Or. Is there any room for question? For me, no, “declared Real coach Carlo Ancelotti.
Ronaldo, who plays for Manchester United and has already won the Ballon d’Or five times, is up for the award once more this year.
Benzema’s teammates Thibaut Courtois, Casemiro, 2018 winner Luka Modric, Vinicius, and Antonio Rudiger, who played for Chelsea, are all on the 30-man roster.
defeated competitors for the Champions League. The number of players nominated by any club is seven, which is held by Liverpool.
The players in question are as follows: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Luis Diaz, Fabinho, Darwin Nunez, Mohamed Salah, and Virgil Van Dijk. Sadio Mane has subsequently moved on to play for Bayern Munich.
Beth Mead, who was the forward for Arsenal and won the Golden Boot at the women’s European Championship, is one of the players on the shortlist for the women’s Ballon d’Or award, which features a total of 20 candidates.
Selma Bacha, Kadidiatou Diani, Marie-Antoinette Katoto, and Wendie Renard are the candidates representing France in this year’s competition.
Alexia Putellas, the reigning champion who suffered a late-game injury that forced her to withdraw from the European Championships, and Ada Hegerberg, the Norwegian star who won the title for the first time in 2018, are both candidates for the award.