Lionel Messi was awarded the Ballon d’Or this Monday evening in Paris, a reward he won for the seventh time. Lionel Messi succeeds himself, who had been rewarded in 2019 (the 2020 edition had been canceled due to a pandemic).
During this gala hosted by former player Didier Drogba and journalist Sandy Heribert, Messi won the relative majority of the votes of the 180 jurors: one journalist per country. He is the second PSG player to lift the prestigious trophy, but the first to do so with the blue and red jersey. The Liberian Georges Weah played half of 1995 in Paris, but was crowned under the colors of AC Milan.
Before joining Paris SG in August, Lionel Messi had won this year “only” the King’s Cup with the club blaugrana. But the little elf (34) has finally reached the Grail in selection, winning the Copa America in July with Argentina, 13 years after winning Olympic gold. What to offer him the precious trophy for a seventh time.
Two other contenders were favorites. First Robert Lewandowski, who would have had every chance in 2020, when he won the Champions League with Bayern Munich. But the Ballon d’Or was not awarded that year, for the first time since its creation in 1956. The Polish international has not however eased off. The serial scorer this year broke the record of the legendary Gerd Müller (40 goals) by scoring 41 goals in a Bundesliga season, even if he did not shine either in the Champions League in the spring, or with Poland in the ‘Euro.
But also the French Karim Benzema, who has the class and personality of a winner, despite an unfinished collective season with Real Madrid and an early elimination with France at the Euro. His recent one-year suspended prison sentence in the “sextape” case, a judgment handed down after the vote closed and which the attacker appealed, did not plead in his favor either.
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