Messi and Nedved can be considered thieves. Why? The reason is the Ballon d’Or!

Lionel Messi has won the Ballon d’Or 2021, the annual award given to the best footballer in the world. However, this year’s announcement raised questions among many fans as to whether Messi was really the best, a similar case occurred in 2003 when Pavel Nedved won.

Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or for the seventh time in his career, the most in the world. No other footballer has the same or higher number of these awards. He is also the oldest player to win the award.

Was it a well-deserved success? Messi kept his Barcelona afloat all last season. He scored and set up goals. He won the Spanish Cup. He and his Argentina side went on to win their dream national trophy when they won the Copa America.

But that simply wasn’t enough success to win this poll, according to a huge number of fans and pundits. Who was more deserving of success than the skilful Argentine?

Some might point to Italian Jorginho, who was a key player in Chelsea winning the Champions League and the Italian national team dominating the European Championships.

He may not have had a great number of goals and assists from his position as a midfielder, but he was one of the mainstays of his teams. By winning the EURO, he matched Messi in the number of international trophies. And the comparison between the Champions League triumph and the Spanish Cup? Here Jorginho wins.

But even more deserving than the Italian or the Argentine is the Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, who is rocking the boat for Bayern Munich. He hasn’t had the success of the previous two players in the national team, but on the club scene he is the best striker in the world.

The Ballon d’Or was not awarded last year. Lewandowski should clearly have won it. He won all the club trophies and was one of the top scorers in all competitions. However, the poll was cancelled.

This gave Lewandowski even more motivation to fight. He scored goals almost every game. He broke several records. He may not have won the Champions League or internationally, but that’s no reason why he shouldn’t have won when he was at his best.

In 2003, the Czech national team’s Pavel Nedved won the Golden Ball. However, his stats were not dazzling. He scored 14 goals and added 17 assists. He took Juventus to the Champions League final, but lost there. He only won the Italian league and cup.

So there are a lot of question marks as to why Arsenal’s star French striker Thierry Henry didn’t win. In terms of individual qualities and statistics, he was much better than Nedved. He scored 32 goals and added 28 assists.

Lewandowski and Henry are on the same level. They were the best footballers in the world that season, but they didn’t win the Ballon d’Or. Because they didn’t win a more valuable club trophy?

Who knows, however, a lot of people may call these two robbed. And they can call Messi and Nedved “thieves”.

Source: France Football