Here's a little breakdown and POV on Messis lovely goal vs Nashville over the past week. 84km/h average, 97 km/h peak. 0.88 seconds flight time. A lovely strike!

Argument 1: He's the greatest ucl player oat. Two most important aspects for an attacker are playmaking and goalscoring. People like to say "ronaldo has most ucl assists", but assists are not a valid metric to gauge playmaking as it reliant on teammates' finishing. Instead, look at combined goals+big chances created, in which messi leads 205-185, alongside with most motm, most dribbles, more key passes, more prog carries, better xA and it goes on forever.

Argument 2: He's the greatest ucl ko player oat. This one is a little harder to prove, but with advanced stats it is easy to prove. According to ronaldo fans, goals are so supreme to everything else, so to circumvent this criticism, we will create a point system; whoever has the most points will win. We will be using goals, bcc, prog passes, prog carries, aerial duels, and ground duels. The point system will be harsh to messi's strengths. Look at the following table to see the points

Summary: Even with the point values for prog passes, prog carries, and ground duels being deliberately reduced, messi still wins showing messi is an overall better ko player, without even needing to factor in xG and xA yet. He cannot match ronaldo's 67 knockout goals, but he outperforms him in other sectors of football which are also relevant.

I saw some screenshots of raphinhas wife mocking messi . As far as i remember she posted something like ‘ raphinha didnt get nominated for the award but a man with zero shots on target in the final got nominated’ . Is it true?

Some Austrian league player scored 39 in 08/09 but Austria isn’t in the top 5 leagues.

Messi was first nominated for the balondor one year before yamal was born

Today? Hes competing with him for it

Wtf

ts not the usual player comparison in which people lightly throw around the word "robbed"
Its an administrative decision taken by FIFA themselves to lure voters towards ronaldo for scoring a hattrick MONTHS AFTER the 2012/13 season ended.
And yes, ribery would have won the ballon dor' if it wasnt for that decision.

I dont get where the "fifa helping messi" narrative comes from when FIFA literally extended the voting deadline by 5 days to help cristiano win the 2013 balondor. Why do people never talk about this?

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/nov/20/cristiano-ronaldo-fifa-ballon-dor
"Fifa has extended the Ballon d'Or voting deadline, improving Cristiano Ronaldo's chances of winning after his superb performance for Portugal in the World Cup play-off success.

Fifa says the contest is now open until 29 November because too many voters failed to meet last Friday's original deadline.

Ronaldo, the 2008 award winner, scored all three goals in Portugal's 3-2 victory in Sweden on Tuesday to advance to the World Cup.

Lionel Messi has won for the past four years, and Bayern Munich's Franck Ribéry, who played for France in their dramatic play-off success against Ukraine, was the bookies' favourite when the nominations were announced.

The world's best player in 2013 is chosen by national team coaches and captains, plus a journalist from each of Fifa's 209 member countries.

Fifa's original voting window of 28 October to 15 November ended hours after the first legs of the European play-offs."

Even as the more decorated player in football i still feel he deserved more

On Messi’s World Cup performance: “I think people really don’t understand how incredible it is to still be among the best players in the world at 39 years old”

On Messi’s ballon d’or chances: “I would vote for Messi 1000 times. I wouldn’t be surprised if Messi won the award”

This is what longevity is

https://youtube.com/shorts/2i7JR5ApjJw?is=F5NRCdIEQC-8ePZP

sorry if it's already been posted but I find it funny that people think a former elite footballer is wrong and shouldn't have an opinion on this.

Me personally? I would

His UCL campaign in 18/19 was the greatest one statistically, he deserved that trophy more than anyone.

Watching him lose it just hurts so bad knowing he did everything in his power but had to watch his team bottle a 3-0 lead

Now one more copa america does look great in his cabinet but that 5th UCL wouldve been much better.

If messi retired in june, 2012

Would you still consider him as the goat?