Ok mister. Who should win the Ballon dor ?
Individual trophies in a team sport are pretty dumb. How are you supposed to know if Messi would crush it in the same way in a different team ? What's the exact importance of the team in his success, and of his performances in his team's success ? Would Barcelona still win La Liga with Dembele playing all year long instead of Messi ? You have no way of knowing all of that for sure. You can just take the stats, and the general impression Messi gives you. That would leave most people to think he's definitely the best in the world, because he's doing things nobody else can do. Other people would ask: what good is that if he can't win the most prestigious trophies with his team ?
All that being said, how do you determine the "best player in the world" ? Do you simply take stats (then it's always going to be an offensive player, and you might aswell simply give it every year to the golden boot) ? Do you pick the most "impressive" player (but then again, it's probably going to be an offensive player, every year) ? Or do you take into account the trophies won (but what about great players playing for shitty teams, especially for "bad" national teams because you can't chose your nationality, just ask Ryan Giggs, Samuel Eto'o, Zlatan and so on) ?
I don't have the answer to that. I have my own opinion, which is that, if you really have to give an individual trophy, it has to be well, based on individual qualities. In that aspect, Messi would have won most of the last 10 Ballon d'Or. I was actually among the people defending the fact that he won when Iniesta or Sneijder could have deserved it, because at the end of the day it all comes down to this: you have to pick the best players in the world during the past year, for a pick-up game against a friend of yours. You want to destroy that friend. Who are you going to pick first ? Sneijder, who won a treble and had a great season in a team that worked superbly with him (or maybe because of him) ? Or an extra-terrestrial being who was born in Argentina and can make you win any game when he feels like it ? Pretty sure you're gonna pick the second one. Or at the very least, no one can really blame you for picking the second one, even if the 1st one can also be a good choice.
But, I do understand that many people (including the journalists voting for the Ballon d'Or) take trophies won into account. Once again, what good is your individual talent if it doesn't push your team forward ? And if you're winning all the most important collective trophies in a year, doesn't it say a lot about what you bring to the team, as a player, and as a person ?
I don't really get it when people say they're outraged that X or Y won the Ballon d'Or instead of Z or W. It's a subjective choice. And most importantly, it's not like they're going to give it to Gabriel Obertan, Moussa Sissoko or Munir. They're going to give it to someone who won (or almost won if it's Modric, but in a team that was considered at best as an outsider at the beginning of the WC) the most important trophy in the world, won the UCL (unless it's Mbappe, but I really don't think it's going to be him), playing a major part in those successes. So yeah, maybe you think that Messi played better, or that Ronaldo scored an amazing goal against Juve and then went on to score goals in a 3rd major league in his career. But that's just your opinion. I respect it, and I can't even say you're completely wrong. But you can't really say that people thinking that Varane or Modric deserve it are completely wrong either.
