The Argentine star, Lionel Messi, the French striker of Paris Saint-Germain, was crowned with the Ballon d’Or award presented by “France Football” magazine, after he beat the Polish Robert Lewandowski and the French Jorginho, while the Egyptian Mohamed Salah fell to the seventh place with 121 points from the total award vote. Balloon d’Or for the current year.
Controversial victory
Although Messi was crowned with the Golden Ball award presented to the best player in the world before on 6 occasions, the last version of the award, which was won by “The Flea”, witnessed controversy, due to the decline in Leo’s level in the last season, and his exit from Barcelona without achieving anything but The King’s Cup title, along with the Copa America with his country last year.
Critics of Messi’s award for the Golden Ball were based on the eligibility of a number of world stars to be crowned, including Salah, who is presenting an exceptional season with Liverpool in terms of numbers and statistics.
What did Salah offer in the “2020-2021” season?
Salah’s remarkable glow since the start of the current season in the English Premier League and the Champions League, was not the only criterion for choosing the “Pharaoh” in an advanced arrangement in the Golden Ball list for the 2021 season, but rather the titles that the player won at the local, continental and international levels.
Salah is at the top of the English Premier League standings this season, with 11 goals. He also provided 8 assists in 13 matches. At the European level, he participated with Liverpool in 5 matches, during which he scored 6 goals.
As for the 2020-2021 season, it witnessed a clear brilliance for the Egyptian pharaoh, but he did not succeed in winning any collective titles, whether with Liverpool or the Egyptian national team.
In general, Salah competed during the last season for the title of top scorer in the “Premier League” competition, but Tottenham striker Harry Kane won the title by one goal from the Egyptian star, who scored 22 goals and provided 5 assists.
As for the FA Cup, Salah scored 3 goals.
On the European level, Liverpool bid farewell to the Champions League from the quarter-finals of the competition, where Salah presented distinguished levels in the continental championship by scoring 6 goals and providing a single assist.
Why Salah fell to the seventh place?
The Spanish radio journalist “Marca”, Pablo Luiz, explains, in exclusive statements to “Sky News Arabia”, the reasons for Salah’s decline to seventh place in the Golden Ball list, from last season 2020-2021.
The Spanish journalist says: “The lack of Salah among the best in this award is considered unfair, and shows how strange the process of selecting the winner of the Golden Ball award is. Salah should always be a candidate to win awards for quality and performance.”
He continues: “Messi’s winning of the Ballon d’Or is still a routine matter. I think that many of those who vote do not know who they are voting for and do so with unfair motives.”
And the Spanish Radio Marca journalist ends his speech, saying: “Salah is currently the best player in the world with huge numbers that he has achieved with Liverpool since the last season. The player deserves to receive awards such as the Golden Ball .. but he has to win titles.”
Absence of collective nicknames
In the same context, sports critic Osama Awad told “Sky News Arabia”: “The main reason for Salah’s decline this time in the ranking of the Golden Ball award is that he did not win any championships during the current year, which affected his vote during the award, unlike the year 2019 when he finished fifth, because he won the Champions League and European Super, as well as the Club World Cup.
And he added, “Salah won last season the second place in the English Premier League standings. We see that the three presented in the Golden Ball won the championships of this world, Messi, Lewandowski and Jorginho, unlike Salah, who did not achieve any championships during the same period.”
“Shocking” arrangement
Regarding Salah’s ranking in the Golden Ball list, the sports critic continues: “I think that the ranking is shocking to many Salah fans, but if we see those who have advanced in the ranking, each of them has achieved championships with his team or his country. The selection criterion this time focuses on who has achieved championships, Although Salah performed better individually than many of them at all, the Golden Ball does not have fixed criteria for selection.”
Awad ends his statements, commenting on Messi’s coronation of the Ballon d’Or: “Messi’s victory was expected according to all the indications that preceded the announcement of the winner, but I thought that the Polish Robert Lewandowski was worthy of crowning it, because he was wronged in 2020 by not winning it when the award was canceled due to Corona pandemic, and he also presented great levels and won championships with Bayern Munich.”
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