In search of an eighth Ballon d’Or, Lionel Messi will face competition embodied by Erling Haaland, elected this Thursday UEFA player of the year.
Winner last December of the 2022 World Cup, Lionel Messi has established himself as the big favorite for the next Ballon d’Or, for what would be his eighth personal consecration. But the Argentinian will have a major rival for the ballot: a certain Erling Haaland.
The Norwegian is driven by the performance of his club, which achieved an exceptional hat-trick (Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League), and by his individual performances, with his record season in the English league. And the threat grew on Thursday with Haaland’s nomination as UEFA Player of the Year, an award for which Messi was also a finalist, along with Kevin De Bruyne.
ERLING HAALAND IS THE 2022-23 UEFA MEN’S PLAYER OF THE YEAR 🌟 pic.twitter.com/7aCgPwAyDT
— B/R Football (@brfootball) August 31, 2023
However, there are two clarifications to be made on this subject. The first is that even though the UEFA Player of the Year trophy is theoretically awarded to “a player playing for a European football club who has distinguished himself as the best of the past season”, it is customary to award it to a player who has shone in competitions organized by UEFA, such as the Champions League or the Euro, or in a European championship. Which is much more the case for Haaland than for Messi who, if he was good in Ligue 1 with PSG, did not shine in C1.
Also, even though Karim Benzema scored the double last year, as did Luka Modric in 2018 and of course Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the past, the UEFA Player of the Year award does not necessarily herald the winner of the Ballon d’Or. So it was Virgil van Dijk in 2019, and especially Jorginho in 2021, in a vote where Messi was not even on the podium. This did not prevent him from winning his seventh Ballon d’Or in stride.
