Lionel Messi Wins the Ballon d’Or for the Eighth Time: Surprising Exclusions and Notable Votes

Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or for the eighth time in his career (REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq)

A few days have passed since Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or for the eighth time, a prestigious award given by France Football magazine to the best footballer of the year with the vote of 100 journalists from all over the world. And although it is striking, some juries put the Argentine idol out of the Top 5 this season, a strange decision since it is the year in which he led Argentina to become champion in the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Messi defeated none other than Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé at the polls. According to the information shared by the French magazine, La Pulga scored 462 points, while Haaland accumulated 357 and Kylian Mbappé added 270 units.

100 journalists from the countries that are in the top 100 of the FIFA ranking participate in the vote. Of the 92 journalists who actually voted – the representatives of Serbia, Mali, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uzbekistan, Haiti, Curaçao and Syria did not – there were 66 who placed Messi in first place.

Curiously, there were six who did not consider the Rosario star among the best five players of the year: Bruno Porzio (El Salvador), Husam Barakat (Jordan), Samnick (Cameroon), Simao Rodrigues (Cape Verde), Christophe Cerf (Switzerland) and Ibrahima Diallo (Guinea).

Six journalists left Lionel Messi out of their Top 5 and the Ivorian representative put him in fifth place.

Another of the specialists who was relegated to his consideration was Adam Khalil, the only Ivorian journalist to vote in the Ballon d’Or since 2007, who put Messi as the fifth best behind Mbappé, Victor Osimhen, Rodri Hernández and Julián Álvarez.

On the other hand, within the group of journalists participating in the voting process, Enrique ‘Quique’ Wolff, a 74-year-old former soccer player who has worked for several years on the ESPN network, appears as an Argentine representative. As expected, he chose Lionel Messi as the best player of the season and included several members of the National Team in his Top 5.

Wolff named Julián Álvarez as the second best footballer, who in addition to being world champion with Argentina in the World Cup also won the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League with Manchester City. And although the podium was completed with Kylian Mbappé, the other two players chosen were Dibu Martínez and Lautaro.

‘Quique’ Wolff’s votes for the Ballon d’Or.

Other awards were also presented at the Ballon d’Or ceremony, such as the Kopa Trophy, which recognizes the best footballer under 21 years of age of the season. Lionel Messi, in his role as captain of the Argentine national team, was part of the voting and it was recently revealed that he chose Jamal Musiala, the young German who works for Bayern Munich, as his favorite.

In his second option, the Rosario star chose Pedri, his former teammate at FC Barcelona; while he completed his podium with Jude Bellingham, new star of Real Madrid, who turned out to be the winner of this award that is disputed by the main promises of world football.

This is how all the Ballon d’Or journalists voted

MESSI BALL OF GOLD JOURNALISTS VOTING
2023-11-04 16:54:16
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