TWIFT | Football | Messi and Rapinoe Win the Ballon d’Or Awards

Messi and Rapinoe Win the Ballon d’Or Awards

The genius of football Lionel Messi and Megan Rapinoe were awarded the Golden Ball. 

The Golden Ball award was founded by the French magazine France Football and is awarded to the best football player according to the results of the calendar year. 

The best female football player 

Megan Rapinoe received the women’s Golden Ball after she has beaten her rivals Lucy Bronze and Alex Morgan. In the summer, the 34-year-old Megan in the US national team won the world championship and was named the best tournament player. In 2015, she also became a champion. 

The 64th ceremony of presenting one of the main awards in modern football, the Golden Ball Prize, was held at the Chatelet Theater in Paris on December 2.

Lionel Messi

This year, the fight for the prize was special for football fans, as it was attended by Barcelona striker Lionel Messi and Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk. This wasn’t like the usual duel between Argentine striker and Juventus footballer Cristiano Ronaldo.

The exception for everyone was the last season when the award unexpectedly went to Real Madrid’s` midfielder Luca Modric.

The winner is determined by voting among journalists that helped the event to look more professional and fair. Earlier the fate of the Golden Ball was decided by players who voted mainly for their teammates and friends. 

The largest number of votes was cast to the Argentinean. A 32-year-old Messi won the Golden Ball for the sixth time. He received prizes in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2015 years and he is the only one who received the prize for four consecutive years.

— “I remember my first Golden Ball in Paris when I came to get an award with my brothers, and this is the sixth time now, it’s simply unthinkable,” — said Messi at the ceremony. — “I’ve never stopped dreaming and enjoying football. I hope that I still have a lot of time ahead, although I’m aware of how old I am, everything happens so quickly, and I know that the moment of retirement is getting closer.”   

Messi

Find out the most famous players who have received rewards three or more times:

Five times an award went to Juventus striker Cristiano Ronaldo (2008, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017). Three times the Golden Ball was awarded to Michel Platini (1983, 1984, 1985), Marco van Basten (1988, 1989, 1992) and Johan Cruyff (1971, 1973, 1974).

In 2010, the award became known as the FIFA Golden Ball after the merger of the France Football Golden Ball and the FIFA Player of the Year. Since 2016, two awards have been awarded separately again (the FIFA also received Messi as the best football player earlier this year).

It is great luck for any player, including Van Dijk, who has a chance to compete for the most prestigious award in the Messi era more than once in his career. Due to the genius of the Argentinean in individual qualities, his main rivals are mainly the players who spent a year successfully at the team level. Since van Dijk won the Champions League against Liverpool with the Tottenham team 2-0 in the final, he made it to the finals of the National League with the Dutch national team and won the club championship wonderfully.

Speaking about the results, the journalists’ voting criterions caused the main disagreements of the fans. The award is an individual prize, so it should be awarded to the best player in the world. But based on this logic, Messi should be awarded every year, since he has no equal opponent from a professional point of view. But the other part believes that the Golden Ball depends on the team success, and this year Barcelona didn’t have it so much.

Last year, Modric won the award after the Champions League victory with Real Madrid. This fact ended the uniformity of Messi and Ronaldo victories, showing that they can also lose. But if we talk about the so-called media champion effect, Luca was chosen only as both Messi and Ronaldo didn’t get the award.  

Poor Van Dijk. He could become only the fourth defender in history to receive the Golden Ball, and only the second to receive a prize for his defensive play, Fabio Cannavaro became the first in 2006. The magic of heads and feints is still stronger. But to lose against fucking cool Messi is not a shame! 

Messi

Van Dijk understands it and shared his impression about the nomination: 

— “To be completely honest, I didn’t think that I would be among the nominees right up to the moment when I found out that I was on the list. This says a lot about how difficult my path to this point was. My career is different from Messi one. I could reach a high level later, but I never gave up and worked hard at every stage.”

Top 10 best world players in 2019:

1. Lionel Messi (“Barcelona”)

2. Virgil Van Dijk (Liverpool)

3. Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus)

4. Sadio Mane (Liverpool)

5. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)

6. Kylian Mbappe (PSG)

7. Alisson Becker (Liverpool)

8. Robert Lewandowski (Bayern)

9. Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)

10. Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City)

This season Messi has 16 games and 13 goals scored (9 games and 9 goals are in the national championship). On November 27, the Argentine footballer celebrated his anniversary the 700th match for Barcelona. He has been playing since 2004 and scored 613 goals against opponents as part of the club. 

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