{"id":295185,"date":"2023-11-02T11:24:25","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T11:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/?p=295185"},"modified":"2023-11-02T11:24:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T11:24:25","slug":"englands-ballon-dor-voter-reveals-why-he-chose-messi-over-haaland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/soccer\/englands-ballon-dor-voter-reveals-why-he-chose-messi-over-haaland\/","title":{"rendered":"England&apos;s Ballon d&apos;Or voter reveals why he chose Messi over Haaland"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>England&#8217;s Ballon d&#8217;Or voter reveals why he chose Lionel Messi over Erling Haaland &#8211; and says it &#8216;has nothing to do with nostalgia&#8217;<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>England&#8217;s Ballon d&#8217;Or voter has revealed his reasons for picking Lionel Messi\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The journalist claimed that he decision was not influenced by &#8216;nostalgia&#8217;\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport&#8217;s podcast &#8216;It&#8217;s All Kicking Off!&#8217;\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>England&#8217;s only\u00a0Ballon d&#8217;Or\u00a0voter\u00a0has revealed his reasons for voting for\u00a0Lionel Messi at the recent award ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Monday night, Messi made history as he was awarded his eighth Ballon d&#8217;Or title after pipping Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe to the accolade.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There was much debate as to whether Messi deserved to claim the award solely for his performances in the 2022 World Cup, where he captained Argentina to victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Some have suggested that Messi was favoured due to the fact it will, likely, be the last time that he can win the award.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, The Times&#8217; Henry Winter has suggested that his voting for Messi was not for &#8216;nostalgia&#8217; and, rather, because of the Inter Miami star&#8217;s impressive performances.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/02\/10\/77314257-12701743-image-a-17_1698922558306.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Argentina star Lionel Messi collected his eighth Ballon d&#8217;Or title on Monday night\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/02\/10\/77314273-12701743-image-a-22_1698922666312.jpg\" height=\"433\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Some have suggested that Man City&#8217;s Erling Haaland was unfortunate to be snubbed<\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>Writing for the newspaper, Winter said: &#8216;In assessing and selecting the Ballon d\u2019Or, inevitably much weight is placed on success in the Champions League\u00a0and in tournaments.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The game is about trophies, and Messi\u2019s performance in Qatar sealed first place and six points from this judge. Messi was on a mission out there, absolutely driven with the obsession of winning the World Cup.\u00a0Messi\u2019s career, even one as glittering as his, with four Champions Leagues, needed this nirvana in Qatar&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>It had been well documented throughout Messi&#8217;s career, prior to the tournament last December, that the only major trophy to elude him was the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For a long time, Messi had never won anything with his national side but he put that to bed after winning the Copa America in 2021 before the World Cup a year later.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;By any metric, Messi was the most effective combatant in the most important competition in sport,&#8217; Winter continued. &#8216;But Messi is about so much more than numbers. He is about the poetry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He is about that astonishing explosion of pace to whisk the ball away from a defender as good as Croatia\u2019s Josko Gvardiol in the semi-final on December 13 at Lusail Stadium&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Come the end of the tournament, Messi was the competition&#8217;s second top scorer, had the joint-most assists and the most chances created.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/02\/10\/77314335-12701743-image-a-21_1698922658610.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Messi&#8217;s World Cup triumph at the end of 2022 was a deciding factor for a number of voters<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/02\/10\/77314355-12701743-image-a-20_1698922644084.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The Inter Miami star produced a stunning performance against Croatia&#8217;s Josko Gvardiol (L)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Winter later explained that he opted for Manchester City&#8217;s Haaland in second and PSG&#8217;s Mbappe in third, after putting Messi forward for the title.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I gave second place, and four points, to Haaland, whose industrial-scale plundering of goals (52) and trophies (the Treble) for Manchester City\u00a0were phenomenal and brought him the football writers\u2019 and PFA player of the year honours in England&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Haaland narrowly missed out on winning the Ballon d&#8217;Or but still claimed the Gerd Muller trophy after scoring the most goals out of any player in the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Former PSG player Jerome Rothen said Messi&#8217;s triumph was &#8216;disgraceful&#8217; and that the Norwegian was far more deserving of the award.<\/p>\n<h3>IT&#8217;S ALL KICKING OFF!\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><span><span>It&#8217;s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span>It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12701743\/Englands-Ballon-dOr-voter-reveals-chose-Lionel-Messi-Erling-Haaland-says-nostalgia.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>England&#8217;s Ballon d&#8217;Or voter reveals why he chose Lionel Messi over Erling Haaland &#8211; and says it &#8216;has nothing to do with nostalgia&#8217; England&#8217;s Ballon d&#8217;Or voter has revealed his reasons for picking Lionel Messi\u00a0 The journalist claimed that he decision was not influenced by &#8216;nostalgia&#8217;\u00a0 Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport&#8217;s podcast [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>England&amp;apos;s Ballon d&amp;apos;Or voter reveals why he chose Messi over Haaland - Sports Life Tale<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/soccer\/englands-ballon-dor-voter-reveals-why-he-chose-messi-over-haaland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"England&amp;apos;s Ballon d&amp;apos;Or voter reveals why he chose Messi over Haaland - Sports Life Tale\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"England&#8217;s Ballon d&#8217;Or voter reveals why he chose Lionel Messi over Erling Haaland &#8211; 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