For the first time since 2005, Argentine star Lionel Messi was not among the nominees for the Ballon d’Or, awarded by France Football magazine to the best player of the year. After such a long relationship, Pascal Ferré, director of the publication stated that “the Ballon d’Or is Messi and Messi is the Ballon d’Or”.
The statement is not exaggerated, since Messi is the maximum winner of the award, with seven prizes, something that Ferré assures that it will be difficult to match: “He is someone who embodies the Ballon d’Or well, because he combines individual and collective performance, but also a certain idea of spectacle and a long longevity”, he affirmed.
He also shared how he called the Argentine twice to announce him as the winner of the recognition:
“In 2019 he told me that he had forgotten the feeling of pleasure of winning it (after a three-year break where he was not recognized), he had realized that he missed it. In 2021 I had the impression that I was talking to a child,” he says.
The rivalry between Messi and Cristino Ronaldo
But he also recalled when he communicated with the Portuguese Cristiano Rolando when he was announced in several editions, although he acknowledged that the Portuguese “has not digested well to be left behind his great rival”.
“It is a very important award for them. The Ballon d’Or is one of the few things that cannot be bought. That makes them humble in the face of this type of reward, it makes them children,” he said.
Messi and Ronaldo have starred in one of the most intense rivalries in the history of sport for more than a decade, a struggle that Ferré believes will also be difficult to overcome.
“There is a lot of talk about the rivalry between Mbappé and Haaland, but neither has won the Champions League. At Mbappé’s age, Messi already had two Ballon d’Ors. If they want to establish a similar rivalry they have to start winning major trophies now. Messi and Ronaldo didn’t take that long,” he concluded.
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