This Monday, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Francethe Argentine star Lionel Messi added a new Ballon d’Or to his collection and is chosen as the best player in the world for the eighth season.
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The footballer, who plays for Inter Miami of Major League Soccer (MLS), makes history with his eighth Ballon d’Or and becomes the first footballer who does not play in Europe to win the award given by France Football magazine.
The Ballon d’Or could have the effigy of Lionel Messi sculpted, the footballer with the most brilliant career in history, the one who has best embodied the values of an award that he won for the eighth time this Monday.
The player born in Rosario 36 years ago completes with this new trophy an impressive record that no other footballer comes close to. When the decline of his career seems imminent, he has known how to make the most of his last great service, the 2022 World Cup, which has propelled him to a new Ballon d’Or.
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It is, without a doubt, the last notch of an impressive resume that has set the bar so high that it seems carved for posterity.
Messi wins this Ballon d’Or two years after the last onethe first that he did not lift with the Barcelona shirt and the first that responded to his exploits with the national team, since then it was thanks to Argentina’s victory in the Copa América.
His aura is so great that the trail of his successes has continued to leave its mark and the World Cup in Qatar, in which he was the main architect of the victory of the Albiceleste and where was chosen best playerhas given him the definitive boost to achieve this eighth Ballon d’Or.
Last year already It helped him to be chosen The Best, since FIFA decided to include the World Cup in the list of merits for the 2022 award, unlike France Football, organizer of the Ballon d’Or, which maintained the natural season.
Eight Ballon d’Ors are the symptom that, at least, Lionel Andrés Messi is the best player of the era of global football, because until a handful of years ago the rules of France Football prevented geniuses like Pelé or Diego Armando Maradona from joining the party.
Any comparison is dangerous, but Messi has taken great advantage of his conditions since his emergence in 2007, when he was third behind the Brazilian Kaká and the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo.
Lionel Messi’s honors
Since then, only in 2018 has he missed the Ballon d’Or podium, never below second place, in an epic duel with Ronaldo, which stagnated at five.
Its only frontier seems to be its own legend, which has lifted it to glory. Messi accumulates 16 great individual awards. Of the eight Ballon d’Ors, four were shared with the best FIFA player, when the award was unified. In 2009 it won both and last year it was again The Best. To this he adds six Golden Boots (2010, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2019).
In addition, he has been the top scorer in the Champions League on five occasions (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2015) and in the Spanish league on eight occasions (2010, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021). .
A list to which are added four Champions Leagues (2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015), ten Spanish leagues (2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019), seven Copas del Rey (2009, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2021), three Club World Cups (2009, 2011 and 2015), three European Super Cups (2009, 2011 and 2015), seven Spanish Super Cups (2006, 2009, 2010 , 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2018), the 2005 U-20 World Cup and the 2008 Olympic Games.
The 2021 Copa América, Argentina’s first in 28 years, after having lost three finals (2007, 2015 and 2016), also bore his signature, as did the 2022 World Cup, a thorn in the side after having lost the 2014 final.
The conquest with the Argentine team.
Thus, Messi extended his kingdom to the national team, the frontier that took the longest to conquer.
His figure will be forever linked to Barcelona, a club to which he arrived at the age of 13 to undergo hormonal treatment and in which he raised a legend, the top historical scorer in the league, for Barcelona, Argentina and any other South American team and second highest Champions League scorer.
Record of goals in a year, in a season in Europe, of the number of assists, Messi signs stratospheric data, perfectly adapted to an award like the Ballon d’Or, which scrutinizes individual talent in a collective sport.
Born in Rosario on June 24, 1987, educated in his hometown, It was in Barcelona where he shone, first in the youth categories, starting in 2000, until in 2003 he began to play with the seniors under the guidance of Frank Rijkaard, eventually establishing himself as the icon of the club.
Barça’s financial problems prevented him from continuing his adventure there and in 2021 he settled in Paris, where his image was overshadowed by the emergence of Kylian Mbappé. But he took revenge at the World Cup and thus delayed the replacement of the young generation embodied by the French star.
Far from his best version, Paris got tired of Messi and Messi got tired of Paris and, in the midst of all the rumors, he headed for a second-tier championship, the American one, where his exploits will have less impact, but where he continues to fuel the hypothesis about his possible continuity in the national team, a good springboard to continue winning titles.
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With information from EFE
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