FOOTBALL: Lionel Messi offers verdict on who have to win Ballon d’Or after Champions League final

Lionel Mes­si has claimed that his suc­ces­sor as Bal­lon d’Or win­ner is already clean fol­low­ing Karim Ben­ze­ma’s show­ing in Sat­ur­day night’s Cham­pi­ons League final.

In Novem­ber, Mes­si land­ed a record-break­ing 7th Bal­lon d’Or iden­ti­fy through scoop­ing the 2021 acco­lade ear­li­er than rat­ing 2d at the back of Robert Lewandows­ki with­in­side the 2021 FIFA Best Men’s Play­er awards lat­er with­in­side the season.

Yet the choice to award the Argen­tine the gong for 2021 become now no longer with out con­tro­ver­sy with many dis­tin­guished voic­es through­out soc­cer crit­i­cis­ing the choice.

Mes­si become joined at the podi­um through Bay­ern Munich strik­er Lewandows­ki and Chelsea mid­field­er Jorgin­ho — who received the Cham­pi­ons League and Euro­pean Championships.

How­ev­er, there has been a splen­did deal of rival­ry that Mes­si had now no longer exe­cut­ed to the iden­ti­cal tiers as Lewandows­ki, who had addi­tion­al­ly neglect­ed out at the 2020 iden­ti­fy because of the award being cancelled.

Mes­si does now no longer con­sid­er there could be a com­pa­ra­ble debate this yr as he insists that the vic­tor for 2022 is already clean. Ben­ze­ma, the Real Madrid strik­er who ranked fourth in final yr’s vot­ing, is the heavy favorite because of his exploits in La Liga and the Cham­pi­ons League.

Mes­si instruct­ed TyC Sports this week while request­ed approx­i­mate­ly who could gath­er the prize sub­se­quent yr: “I assume there aren’t anyt any doubts, it’s far very clean that Ben­ze­ma had a aston­ish­ing 12 months and end­ed up cement­ing his func­tion with the Cham­pi­ons League victory.

Have Your Say! Does Ben­ze­ma need to win this yr’s Bal­lon d’Or crown? Tell us what you observed here.

“He become essen­tial from the Round of six­teen onwards in all of the games. I assume there aren’t anyt any doubts this yr.”

The French­man per­formed a impor­tant func­tion in Madrid’s thir­ty fifth La Liga iden­ti­fy how­ev­er has max­i­mum dras­ti­cal­ly starred because the club received the Cham­pi­ons League this season.

The semi-final show become any oth­er mag­i­cal over­all per­for­mance from Ben­ze­ma after his quick­fire hat-trick downed Paris Saint-Ger­main with­in­side the Round of six­teen ear­li­er than he bagged any oth­er tre­ble in oppo­si­tion to Chelsea with­in­side the quar­ter-final lev­el of the com­pe­ti­tion, in which he net­ted a win­ner in oppo­si­tion to in extra-time of the go back leg.

The 34-yr-old has been in glow­ing shape this mar­ket­ing cam­paign and has scored a ter­rif­ic forty four dreams in forty six appear­ances. That has with­out prob­lems exceed­ed his pre­ced­ing first-rate of 32 moves for a sea­son low­er back in 2011-12.

The ahead has scored 15 goals with­in­side the Cham­pi­ons League in only 12 appear­ances this mar­ket­ing cam­paign and become named because the Cham­pi­ons League Play­er of the Season.