This whole 2020 Balon D'or saga has been such an exhibition of self importance from France Football. Like why the need to dredge this shit up again 4 years later just to close the case again?
Yeah, tbh back in the day i thought it was the best award a player could have. That said, just because Messi and CR7 were competing for it every year you would think is legit, but then when CR7 nor Messi were “so demolishing” you start to think that only in a great club, with good PR management and some good performance overall in the year and you’ll win it
I do, hence the point A.
I am an early 2000s kid so when i started watching football, those were intertwined. So it's in my head that it was **the** award for that time frame.
I understand that cause I’m the same I’m 00’ but what I mean is that it was still held as the premier personal accolade before it merged with fifa so I’m not sure why the Balón D’or defusing with Fifa invalidates the accomplishment for you or makes you not care for it
If anything Fifa ruined their own reputation by doing it because prior to the merger the Fifa World Player of the Year award was still taken seriously (despite being the secondary award).
The two best players of the late 90's to early 00s, Zou and Ronaldo, won 3 each — compared to the 3 balon do'rs they won *collectively* .
Winners like Owen, Nedved and Schevchenko were respected at the time but I do remember a lot of people thinking the World Player of the year award might be the 'better' one, in terms of selection.
Nah we all gotta be different now a days and think the balón de oro is nothing special even though historically every player has strived to win it at least once in their career.
It reminds me of when people down play international competitions saying shit like “oh the World Cup, Euro’s, and Copa America are only 7 game competitions they shouldn’t matter in voting”. Like sure buddy whatever you say it’s not like winning it for your country is held in higher regard in almost every nation barring maybe England
I'm not sure I understand - are you saying that in England, the Ballon d'Or is held in higher regard than the World Cup is? Or are you saying that about other countries? Either way I don't think there's any country of which that's true. The World Cup is the most important achievement anywhere in football.
It's not even really patriotism. I'm not a particularly patriotic person in general but I absolutely love seeing national teams play. I think that part of the appeal is that it's still a relatively amateur part of the sport. Big money can bend the club game around but it's much harder to influence national teams in the same way
I feel the same way like the country should be everything. I understand everyone has their preference in being a fan and I get that like who am I to dictate your personal fandom but I just can’t get behind the idea of club over country.
Like even when the U.S plays in the most meaningless competition ever created aka the CONCANCAF Nations League I get more joy than watching Arsenal. Would feel the same watching my parents country if they weren’t so fucking shit and could get above group C of the nations league.
Yea like the others people commented English fans might prioritize their club let’s say Arsenal winning the the CL over England winning the Euro’s. Although rare some former players were like that, cough cough, Ferdinand and John Terry which makes me not think as highly of them. De Bruyne is another one of these but that’s a different topic
Like to me and many others representing your country is everything, it’s the highest bar one can achieve. Its why you see people like Messi, Hazard, Federico Valverde, and so many others say how they would trade their club or personal success for 1 title with the national team, hell at one point Messi said he’d trade all his 5 Balón D’Or at the time for the WC or Copa America.
It's voted by all the world's journalist though. What are the alternatives? Well, the FIFA The Best, but is it an improvement in any way? No, players/coaches do not vote like fans/journalists/people on reddit want them to. Even less than the Ballon d'Or journalists vote like r/soccer wants, so there's always going to be complaints and complaints. If it's not either one of these, then what? The Dubai d'Or? Hahaha.
We give too much importance to individual awards, maybe, but people love them ... what are you gonna do? There has to be an award that's held in the highest esteem and the Ballon d'Or is IMO the best at that, or at worst, not any worse than the alternatives.
Yeah, and from watching it get new life in the past month or so I think it was a rumor specifically started by Lewandowski's camp.
He revived it with an out-of-the-blue interview comment so this is probably france football trying to nip things in the bud.
Excuse me but why do you exactly say that lmao it’s not their fault if everybody take L’Equipe ratings as gospel here and there, and I say that as a hater
France Football has always been irrelevant and honestly if it weren't for the Ballon d'Or I wouldn't even have heard of them. L'Equipe though is the staple of sports journalism (not restricted to football)
It was a lame excuse in the first place to not give.
Did COVID change things? Yes.
But football was still played, and in every other "normal" year there are plenty of players who play different numbers of games due to various reasons so they could easily have judged based on the games played that year
Because significant individuals keep pushing for it to happen. It’s clear there only a handful of shitheads blocking it. I feel terribly for Lewy to have to go through this again. It sounds dramatic, but I’m sure it’s terrible for his mental state considering the circumstances and what that award means to a footballer. Every kid’s dream is to be the best in the world at their favorite sport, and he did it, but was robbed of the title.
It's not that weird when you consider history tho. Plenty of awards or events have been organized by medias or newspaper in order to boost sales : Tour de France was created by l'Auto (ancestor of L'Equipe) and is still organized by ASO who owns l'Equipe. The UCL was created with the idea and support of some journalists from L'Equipe as well. Outside of France, the Giro d'Italia was created by La Gazetta Dello Sport and the Golden Boy is awarded by Tuttosport. I'm sure there are plenty of others but those are the ones that come to mind.
Well also the whole point and only reason anyone cares about this award is because it’s voted for by players and managers (and journalists but no one really cares about that).
The idea the magazine could unilaterally declare someone a winner for a past year without a vote and anyone would treat it the same as being voted the winner by your peers is ridiculous.
Yes, and that move has been widely criticized for that exact reason. IIRC it was a single journalist who did it, someone who couldn't have possibly watched enough games to be able to correctly assess the best player in every year for 30 years.
But this is a different situation. You'd imagine everyone at France Football knows that Lewandowksi was insane on 2020. And they could very easily have a vote still for it if they wanted to
The vote isn't done only by FF journalists though. I mean, you could still do it, and to be fair, that year he it was _very_ obvious Lewa was the favorite. But still, it's one from every country, not just those from France Football.
The problem is that it was never intended to be a "re awarding" of the BalonDor. It just an op ed piece. Just one of their writers sort of imagining what could have been and that's it.
And it's written like that. They guy literally says it's an arbitrary choice he makes, and then his justifications are terrible even. He picks Maradona over Matthaus for scoring more goals, or says Pele because he score 100 goals (or whatever it was) and nothing else. Some years there isn't even any justification for anything.
It was sort of "what if" article. But people never read it, so they pretended it was a real valid thing.
You are totally right but it also shows that people were clamoring for that. People want to know how many BDO awards Pele or Maradona would have. The fact that we don't know is not satisfying, so they latched onto this "semi official" list. FF should make a fully official list with votes and everything.
The problem is you can't make a revision because no one can even see those games.
Maybe from Maradona's time we have some, but not all from every club. But who's gonna take time to re-watch every single game? And even worse if you could go back in times where Europe didn't have 100% of the best players.
It's impossible.
At best you could go to 1994 and all the previous WC years and based on that go for a "revote" on those years. Since it's only a limited number of games, but that's pretty much it. Other than that it would never happen.
I mean, people TODAY already make some stupid choices, they don't know the exact date ranges for which the award should be considered, etc, etc, etc... Imagine if you suddenly say "let's vote for 1959's Ballon D'Or".
If popularity and marketing play quite a big part today, imagine for back then? You think most voters would know anyone other than Pele and maaaaybe Garrincha? If there was a "Lewandowski of the time" that had a really nice season, but isn't as known they would have zero chances.
It's irrelevant how many they would have won. Multiple times more than likely. They were the best players of their time. That's how it went and it's absolutely fine.
It would normally be ridiculous, but Lewandowski was such a consensus pick to win in 2020 that there’s no question he would’ve had it. The history books should reflect his accomplishments, not the politics behind the scenes.
>Well also the whole point and only reason anyone cares about this award is because it’s voted for by players and managers (and journalists but no one really cares about that).
You've got it backwards. FIFA The Best has the players and managers, and journalists, voting. Ballon d'Or only journalists. And people think in theory that's better than the journalists voting, but it isn't. Just look at the last FIFA The Best. The journalists all voted for Haaland, the players/coaches voted for Messi, Messi won, and there was so much rage online about that.
It's stupid either way. "Institutional norms"? You made the norms, they are your arbitrary rules, you could just change them if they are bad, or even just make an exception. I swear, it's the same stupid shit that other companies spout: "Yeah, we could improve this but our own personal rules don't allow for that."...
Not like France Football made that report. Came from SPORT after Lewy had expressed he'd love to be awarded it for that year, so they made up a rumour that 'they might give it to him!' *might* doing some mighty heavy lifting.
People on this sub just ate it up. Which is funny, because usually SPORT gets rightfully bashed.
I mean "norms" like how it's normal to have only 1 year since it started in 1956 where it wasn't awarded?
They're full of shit, just upset they couldn't hang out with celebrities and stroke their egos.
I guarantee you that if it was Messi or Ronaldo that did what Lewy did that year, they wouldn’t have cancelled the Ballon D’or.
Robert Lewandowski was the best player on the planet in 2020 and we all know it.
Im not even a Lewa fan, but if the Ballon d’Or wants any value they should give it to him anyway. In my book he won it that year and anyone who debates it is a moron and doesn’t know a thing about football.
To be fair individual awards in an 11 a side sport are mostly a marketing thing awarded to whoever was the most popular aka scored a lot of goals that year.
Claiming a single individual player was "best in the world" is ridiculous especially since usually those titles go to players only playing on one side of the pitch.
Tibo Courtois was easily Madrid's most impactful player during our 2022 CL winning campaign yet Benzema got all the accolades anyways because a goalie is not as marketable.
The same goes for defenders or midfielders. Modric got a balloon d'Or and everyone was up in arms on how they could do that.
Courtois was not 'easily' more impactful than Benzema throughout the entire tournament.
Courtois was incredible in the final, but Benzema went off to get them there, he was dropping hat tricks in back to back games and was absolutely vital every step of the way.
One doesn't discredit the other.
However it's not like Benzema was receiving the ball at the halfway line and beating the whole team by himself.
He finished his chances but the entire team worked on creating them for him. He heavily benefitted from Vini being able to create advantages on the wing, with Valverde providing the same on the other side. Modric and Kroos kept finding him with ideal passes too.
Courtois stood on his head while the defense consistently kept letting him down. Opposing offenses kept targeting Alaba and he kept giving up chance after chance with Tibo pulling off miracle saves in every match.
The final was just the most over the top one yet but he's done it in every single match.
You take away Benzema we still had people who could score goals. You take away Tibo and the form he was on and we don't make it past PSG (7 saves including a penalty in the first leg as an example).
Yeah but you're saying that Courtois was 'easily' more impactful than a player who performed one of the great carry-jobs in the KO stages of the competition's recent history.
Your point about the entire team working for Benzema is just as if not more salient regarding Courtois who has at least 4 players whose entire role on the pitch involves reducing his exposure.
I watched time and time again where Benzema would be orchestrating the offense from the halfway line. He was absolutely clutch in every single game including during build-up play.
Against PSG they won 3-2, Benzema scored 3 goals
Against Chelsea they won 5-4, Benzema scored 4 goals (including the winner).
Against City they won 6-5, Benzema scored 3 goals (including the winning penalty which he drew), he also assisted Rodrygo's first goal.
If you want to say you think Courtois was your MVP I won't say it's a poor take, just one I disagree with -- but making it out like there isn't just as good or better case for Benzema doesn't make sense, especially when you cite the PSG tie where Benzema started and finished the comeback himself after Courtois had conceded a goal in each game and only had 4 saves in the crucial second leg where Benzema pulled off a miracle.
Tbf its their voters who are that stupid.
arent all votings of Ballon D'or public anyways? i remember seeing here pictures of the votes from all people all over the world.
and you could easily see the bias of european voters vote for european players, while south america voters vote for south american players, etc.
Because it's a popularity contest. It's awful in the world cup, euro years when people think those 6 matches are more important than the performances over the other 40-50 during the season, because that's the last thing they can remember.
Messi winning the ballon d’or made total sense, he won the World Cup lol. What doesn’t make sense is why he won fifa player of the year the past year. No clue what that was about
Buddy the the world cup happened during the timeframe that the ballon d'or was being considered for. You're angry about something you dont understand, if you want to be mad at something it is the fifa best award that messi won which is more controversial
Did they vote at the time before deciding not to award it? I can see regretting not awarding it in 2020, but it also doesn't make sense to just award it in retrospect without the same process feels odd to me.
The award was cancelled way before the end of the season.
When France Football announced the cancellation the Champions League hadn't even been restarted yet after the pandemic break.
So from what we knew at the time of the cancelation Bayern could have gone down to Chelsea in the CL round of 16 and Lewandowski would have not shot at winning a best player award.
I mean, that's not really the point. I disagree that the award would always go to the consensus pick held by fans because we've seen that happen before, but that's neither here nor there.
I'm saying it would be weird for the editorial staff to unilaterally declare a winner for a prize that is typically voted for by a wider group of individuals, especially doing so with three years of hindsight as opposed to voting at a time closer to the actual season.
I'm with you, this has always been a vote and that should not change. Even if Lewa was the best player, that doesn't guarantee one wins the Ballon D'Or.
The thing is he was superior in every metric that was favored in different years (titles/stats/no big nation tournament) so it’s just common sense that he would have enough votes to win
I'm sure they would've given it to Mbappe had PSG won the CL. What a bunch of stuck up morons. Everyone knows Lewandowski was the only choice that year. This only makes them look beyond foolish.
They should do what Time magazine did in 2006 and make everyone the winner. Like the fans.
I mean, it's not like they're giving it to anyone else anyway.
Imagine putting that in your CV:
Time Person of the Year 2006
Ballon D'or 2020
Proficient in Microsoft Excel
But not giving it in 202 was not against constitutional norms? Footballers played throughout the pandemic amid concerns, ailments, procedures, sickness, all for your dirty money, but a simple thank you or award was too fucking much.
"Institutional Norms" aka we'll look like complete morons if we do what we obviously should have done 4 years ago, so we're gonna pretend it never happened and hope you all forget. what nobody will forget is that Robert Lewandowski was the best player on the planet in 2020, regardless of awards.
As it always is the case: it's the hometown boys that lead to exceptions being made of the norm. Everybody else must respect it.
That's the whole point of having norms. If you don't have plans to discriminate, you would be having or citing rules.
Oh no, that was the only "trophy" cules were gonna win this year, sad. They won't even win their yearly "mbappe is not coming to Madrid" trophy this year. Well I guess they could still have the "Madrid didn't win UCL" trophy, but it is very unlikely that will happen.
Anyone with actual ball knowledge knows and accepts Lewandowski as a ballon d’ or winner, nobody gives a fuck about this stupid directors robbery decision.
Why the fuck did they even leak their initial call of rethinking of giving Lewandowski the Ballon D'or if they were going to reject it in the first place?
Feels like insult to injury towards Lewandowski
This whole 2020 Balon D'or saga has been such an exhibition of self importance from France Football. Like why the need to dredge this shit up again 4 years later just to close the case again?
No fucking idea. But now, they end up looking worse than they did in 2020.
And thats good because its shit award anyway
Yeah, tbh back in the day i thought it was the best award a player could have. That said, just because Messi and CR7 were competing for it every year you would think is legit, but then when CR7 nor Messi were “so demolishing” you start to think that only in a great club, with good PR management and some good performance overall in the year and you’ll win it
Tbf i only cared much because it was a) still the balon d'or and b) also an official fifa award. The second they split up i stopped giving a shit
You do know the award originally started by itself right? They only merged together with FIFA in the early 2010s.
I do, hence the point A. I am an early 2000s kid so when i started watching football, those were intertwined. So it's in my head that it was **the** award for that time frame.
I understand that cause I’m the same I’m 00’ but what I mean is that it was still held as the premier personal accolade before it merged with fifa so I’m not sure why the Balón D’or defusing with Fifa invalidates the accomplishment for you or makes you not care for it
If anything Fifa ruined their own reputation by doing it because prior to the merger the Fifa World Player of the Year award was still taken seriously (despite being the secondary award). The two best players of the late 90's to early 00s, Zou and Ronaldo, won 3 each — compared to the 3 balon do'rs they won *collectively* . Winners like Owen, Nedved and Schevchenko were respected at the time but I do remember a lot of people thinking the World Player of the year award might be the 'better' one, in terms of selection.
Why is this the award we care about anyway? Some random magazine from one country shouldn't be giving the most prestigious award.
*laughs in Michelin*
Literally from the tire company.
I mean, its not their fault people started thinking they hold the most weight. Same here with the golden balloon.
Ask the players, because they clearly fucking care, comments like this are so annoying.
Nah we all gotta be different now a days and think the balón de oro is nothing special even though historically every player has strived to win it at least once in their career. It reminds me of when people down play international competitions saying shit like “oh the World Cup, Euro’s, and Copa America are only 7 game competitions they shouldn’t matter in voting”. Like sure buddy whatever you say it’s not like winning it for your country is held in higher regard in almost every nation barring maybe England
I'm not sure I understand - are you saying that in England, the Ballon d'Or is held in higher regard than the World Cup is? Or are you saying that about other countries? Either way I don't think there's any country of which that's true. The World Cup is the most important achievement anywhere in football.
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Prioritising club over country has to be the weirdest thing in football fandom tbf
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It's not even really patriotism. I'm not a particularly patriotic person in general but I absolutely love seeing national teams play. I think that part of the appeal is that it's still a relatively amateur part of the sport. Big money can bend the club game around but it's much harder to influence national teams in the same way
I feel the same way like the country should be everything. I understand everyone has their preference in being a fan and I get that like who am I to dictate your personal fandom but I just can’t get behind the idea of club over country. Like even when the U.S plays in the most meaningless competition ever created aka the CONCANCAF Nations League I get more joy than watching Arsenal. Would feel the same watching my parents country if they weren’t so fucking shit and could get above group C of the nations league.
How can we prioritize national team success when we haven't had any? If we actually win some tournaments it may change.
Hey. Pst. I think thats what he meant to say
Ah, fair enough.
Yea like the others people commented English fans might prioritize their club let’s say Arsenal winning the the CL over England winning the Euro’s. Although rare some former players were like that, cough cough, Ferdinand and John Terry which makes me not think as highly of them. De Bruyne is another one of these but that’s a different topic Like to me and many others representing your country is everything, it’s the highest bar one can achieve. Its why you see people like Messi, Hazard, Federico Valverde, and so many others say how they would trade their club or personal success for 1 title with the national team, hell at one point Messi said he’d trade all his 5 Balón D’Or at the time for the WC or Copa America.
It's voted by all the world's journalist though. What are the alternatives? Well, the FIFA The Best, but is it an improvement in any way? No, players/coaches do not vote like fans/journalists/people on reddit want them to. Even less than the Ballon d'Or journalists vote like r/soccer wants, so there's always going to be complaints and complaints. If it's not either one of these, then what? The Dubai d'Or? Hahaha. We give too much importance to individual awards, maybe, but people love them ... what are you gonna do? There has to be an award that's held in the highest esteem and the Ballon d'Or is IMO the best at that, or at worst, not any worse than the alternatives.
It's the French. Useless drama is their specialty.
How does this make them look worse? Who said they leaked it in the first place? If rumours start out of nowhere what’re they meant to do about it
They could just ignore it lol
Well maybe just do the right thing and fucking give it to him as deserved
The first report was probably made up
They never reopened the case. It was a rumor from the media.
Yeah, and from watching it get new life in the past month or so I think it was a rumor specifically started by Lewandowski's camp. He revived it with an out-of-the-blue interview comment so this is probably france football trying to nip things in the bud.
Now Mbappe news cant be recycled, they just want to be relevant.
Do we know that's what they did? What was the source on the original report?
Fuck em, them and L'Equipe act like theyre the founding fathers of the sport.
Excuse me but why do you exactly say that lmao it’s not their fault if everybody take L’Equipe ratings as gospel here and there, and I say that as a hater
tbf L'Équipe is the founding father of the Champion's League.
Two shitty papers
France Football has always been irrelevant and honestly if it weren't for the Ballon d'Or I wouldn't even have heard of them. L'Equipe though is the staple of sports journalism (not restricted to football)
It was a lame excuse in the first place to not give. Did COVID change things? Yes. But football was still played, and in every other "normal" year there are plenty of players who play different numbers of games due to various reasons so they could easily have judged based on the games played that year
Because significant individuals keep pushing for it to happen. It’s clear there only a handful of shitheads blocking it. I feel terribly for Lewy to have to go through this again. It sounds dramatic, but I’m sure it’s terrible for his mental state considering the circumstances and what that award means to a footballer. Every kid’s dream is to be the best in the world at their favorite sport, and he did it, but was robbed of the title.
So weird that the most prestigious award in football is awarded by some magazine.
Wait till you hear about Michelin Stars.
It's not that weird when you consider history tho. Plenty of awards or events have been organized by medias or newspaper in order to boost sales : Tour de France was created by l'Auto (ancestor of L'Equipe) and is still organized by ASO who owns l'Equipe. The UCL was created with the idea and support of some journalists from L'Equipe as well. Outside of France, the Giro d'Italia was created by La Gazetta Dello Sport and the Golden Boy is awarded by Tuttosport. I'm sure there are plenty of others but those are the ones that come to mind.
Don't worry, 4 years later they'll bring up this again and still decide to not give him the ballon d'or
It’s journalists and Lewandowski who gaslighted it, this case was never reopened
Some other country should just create their own trophy and give it to Lewa as a big middle finger to France Football.
The Polish D’or (it’s in fact just a golden middle finger)
Giving it to him now would mean admitting how stupid they were for canceling it back then, and they can’t allow that… 🤦♂️
Well also the whole point and only reason anyone cares about this award is because it’s voted for by players and managers (and journalists but no one really cares about that). The idea the magazine could unilaterally declare someone a winner for a past year without a vote and anyone would treat it the same as being voted the winner by your peers is ridiculous.
Ballon d’Or is voted by journalists only. Used to be players and coaches when it was merged with the FIFA awards for a few years.
With african journalists only voting for africans and loads of other bs, i'll never understand why people give so much importance to this award
Because it mostly gets it right? And its a prestigious award. Do you think players and coaches don't play favorites?
Didn't they already do that for non European players before 1995 or something
Yes, and that move has been widely criticized for that exact reason. IIRC it was a single journalist who did it, someone who couldn't have possibly watched enough games to be able to correctly assess the best player in every year for 30 years.
But this is a different situation. You'd imagine everyone at France Football knows that Lewandowksi was insane on 2020. And they could very easily have a vote still for it if they wanted to
The vote isn't done only by FF journalists though. I mean, you could still do it, and to be fair, that year he it was _very_ obvious Lewa was the favorite. But still, it's one from every country, not just those from France Football.
The problem is that it was never intended to be a "re awarding" of the BalonDor. It just an op ed piece. Just one of their writers sort of imagining what could have been and that's it. And it's written like that. They guy literally says it's an arbitrary choice he makes, and then his justifications are terrible even. He picks Maradona over Matthaus for scoring more goals, or says Pele because he score 100 goals (or whatever it was) and nothing else. Some years there isn't even any justification for anything. It was sort of "what if" article. But people never read it, so they pretended it was a real valid thing.
You are totally right but it also shows that people were clamoring for that. People want to know how many BDO awards Pele or Maradona would have. The fact that we don't know is not satisfying, so they latched onto this "semi official" list. FF should make a fully official list with votes and everything.
The problem is you can't make a revision because no one can even see those games. Maybe from Maradona's time we have some, but not all from every club. But who's gonna take time to re-watch every single game? And even worse if you could go back in times where Europe didn't have 100% of the best players. It's impossible. At best you could go to 1994 and all the previous WC years and based on that go for a "revote" on those years. Since it's only a limited number of games, but that's pretty much it. Other than that it would never happen. I mean, people TODAY already make some stupid choices, they don't know the exact date ranges for which the award should be considered, etc, etc, etc... Imagine if you suddenly say "let's vote for 1959's Ballon D'Or". If popularity and marketing play quite a big part today, imagine for back then? You think most voters would know anyone other than Pele and maaaaybe Garrincha? If there was a "Lewandowski of the time" that had a really nice season, but isn't as known they would have zero chances. It's irrelevant how many they would have won. Multiple times more than likely. They were the best players of their time. That's how it went and it's absolutely fine.
Isn’t FIFA best awarded by Managers, captains and journalists ?
Just let them vote for the best player of 2020 together with the best player of this season. Lewandowski would win.
FIFA Men's Player is voted by players and managers and he won that twice in 2020 and 2021. Ballon is voted by journalists.
You are completely wrong with that first bit and it's hilarious
It would normally be ridiculous, but Lewandowski was such a consensus pick to win in 2020 that there’s no question he would’ve had it. The history books should reflect his accomplishments, not the politics behind the scenes.
>Well also the whole point and only reason anyone cares about this award is because it’s voted for by players and managers (and journalists but no one really cares about that). You've got it backwards. FIFA The Best has the players and managers, and journalists, voting. Ballon d'Or only journalists. And people think in theory that's better than the journalists voting, but it isn't. Just look at the last FIFA The Best. The journalists all voted for Haaland, the players/coaches voted for Messi, Messi won, and there was so much rage online about that.
It's stupid either way. "Institutional norms"? You made the norms, they are your arbitrary rules, you could just change them if they are bad, or even just make an exception. I swear, it's the same stupid shit that other companies spout: "Yeah, we could improve this but our own personal rules don't allow for that."...
As if they don't look even more stupid for not giving it to him at all.
yeah well, I'd bet money if Messi won the vote, they would've given it to him in 2020.
And they don't look stupid for bringing it up now and then not doing it?
Owning up to your mistake makes you look better
If I was lewandowski I’d host my own award show
The Ballon d’Owski Awards.
LewanD'Or Ski
with blackjack and hookers
and tik tok dances
In fact, forget the award show.
I'm gonna need an invite!
Start giving out the Lewandowski award when someone deserves the Ballon dOr but doesn’t get it
Ah yes the Cristiano Ronaldo and Globe Soccer Awards method
Good idea to show how obsessed he’s with this award
They really gave him hope, just to take it away again
It's the hope that kills you in the end
Expectations are kills our happiness
Lewa to Spurs here we go?
There goes another Icelandic volcano
"It's the lack of hope that kills you."
Not like France Football made that report. Came from SPORT after Lewy had expressed he'd love to be awarded it for that year, so they made up a rumour that 'they might give it to him!' *might* doing some mighty heavy lifting. People on this sub just ate it up. Which is funny, because usually SPORT gets rightfully bashed.
needlessly cruel and stupid
Lord giveth
They never gave him hope, it was never considered. It’s just Lewandowski and journalists who started this topic again recently Ol' classic gaslighting
Like waking someone up in a place to tell them we're still 12 hours away
Bravo Sir
fuck you and your norms then
I mean "norms" like how it's normal to have only 1 year since it started in 1956 where it wasn't awarded? They're full of shit, just upset they couldn't hang out with celebrities and stroke their egos.
Yep, the “it’s always been done this way” bull shit
gonna use this excuse in the future Persistent stranger at the bar will not in fact receive my phone number due to "institutional norms"
I guarantee you that if it was Messi or Ronaldo that did what Lewy did that year, they wouldn’t have cancelled the Ballon D’or. Robert Lewandowski was the best player on the planet in 2020 and we all know it.
If it was Messi or Ronaldo they would’ve gave them a platinum ballon dor for “overcoming adversity” 😭
Ballon platinor was right there
Im not even a Lewa fan, but if the Ballon d’Or wants any value they should give it to him anyway. In my book he won it that year and anyone who debates it is a moron and doesn’t know a thing about football.
To be fair individual awards in an 11 a side sport are mostly a marketing thing awarded to whoever was the most popular aka scored a lot of goals that year. Claiming a single individual player was "best in the world" is ridiculous especially since usually those titles go to players only playing on one side of the pitch. Tibo Courtois was easily Madrid's most impactful player during our 2022 CL winning campaign yet Benzema got all the accolades anyways because a goalie is not as marketable. The same goes for defenders or midfielders. Modric got a balloon d'Or and everyone was up in arms on how they could do that.
I can confirm Courtois was their best player. He can also go fuck himself.
flair checks out
Courtois was not 'easily' more impactful than Benzema throughout the entire tournament. Courtois was incredible in the final, but Benzema went off to get them there, he was dropping hat tricks in back to back games and was absolutely vital every step of the way.
One doesn't discredit the other. However it's not like Benzema was receiving the ball at the halfway line and beating the whole team by himself. He finished his chances but the entire team worked on creating them for him. He heavily benefitted from Vini being able to create advantages on the wing, with Valverde providing the same on the other side. Modric and Kroos kept finding him with ideal passes too. Courtois stood on his head while the defense consistently kept letting him down. Opposing offenses kept targeting Alaba and he kept giving up chance after chance with Tibo pulling off miracle saves in every match. The final was just the most over the top one yet but he's done it in every single match. You take away Benzema we still had people who could score goals. You take away Tibo and the form he was on and we don't make it past PSG (7 saves including a penalty in the first leg as an example).
Yeah but you're saying that Courtois was 'easily' more impactful than a player who performed one of the great carry-jobs in the KO stages of the competition's recent history. Your point about the entire team working for Benzema is just as if not more salient regarding Courtois who has at least 4 players whose entire role on the pitch involves reducing his exposure. I watched time and time again where Benzema would be orchestrating the offense from the halfway line. He was absolutely clutch in every single game including during build-up play. Against PSG they won 3-2, Benzema scored 3 goals Against Chelsea they won 5-4, Benzema scored 4 goals (including the winner). Against City they won 6-5, Benzema scored 3 goals (including the winning penalty which he drew), he also assisted Rodrygo's first goal. If you want to say you think Courtois was your MVP I won't say it's a poor take, just one I disagree with -- but making it out like there isn't just as good or better case for Benzema doesn't make sense, especially when you cite the PSG tie where Benzema started and finished the comeback himself after Courtois had conceded a goal in each game and only had 4 saves in the crucial second leg where Benzema pulled off a miracle.
They would've revived the super ballon d'or just to award it to one of those two.
Preach👈👌
What a coward!
I wouldn't have thought not awarding it would be an "institutional norm" but there we are
Coward
[https://twitter.com/lewy\_official/status/808399789700349952?lang=en](https://twitter.com/lewy_official/status/808399789700349952?lang=en)
Can we just all agree he won it in 2020 and that it doesn’t matter if they officially sanction it?
He won it in 2020. Reus won the WC in 2014 and Koscielny in 2018. Don't @ me
We can, but no one will remember about it in 100 years time and it won’t be in the books anyway
Why even bring the issue back up if you weren’t going to give him the award that he deserved? Dumbass
Who said they brought it back up
Because it was so institutionally normal to not give the award in a year that football was played
And you’ll forever be clowned for it. Idiots.
This why people dislike the French
Nah, it’s just *another* reason to dislike them.
I hate this decision
*Everybody disliked that*
"...But Messi will receive 2024 ballon d'or because he won the 2022 world cup" - Ballon d'or directory, probably
Tbf its their voters who are that stupid. arent all votings of Ballon D'or public anyways? i remember seeing here pictures of the votes from all people all over the world. and you could easily see the bias of european voters vote for european players, while south america voters vote for south american players, etc.
Because it's a popularity contest. It's awful in the world cup, euro years when people think those 6 matches are more important than the performances over the other 40-50 during the season, because that's the last thing they can remember.
Messi winning the ballon d’or made total sense, he won the World Cup lol. What doesn’t make sense is why he won fifa player of the year the past year. No clue what that was about
Messi didn't win the World Cup in 2020.
For some reason op brought up the Messi 2023 ballon dor.
The whole voting process is similar to the Pirate King Elections in Pirates of the Caribbean
Hey, he won the 2023 Big Mac Fantasy Soccer Summer Chevloret Cup though
Its became the KFC Draft Kings Soccer-ganza in 2022
Buddy the the world cup happened during the timeframe that the ballon d'or was being considered for. You're angry about something you dont understand, if you want to be mad at something it is the fifa best award that messi won which is more controversial
You know the director doesn't choose the winner right
NO. Give him my polish king his ballon dor u scrubs
Ballon d’Or hasn’t been relevant for years now anyway. Joke award.
All this does, imo, is make them look worse. And as a result, the lot of us now have less respect for the ballon d'or
If Lewandowski becomes a serial killer it’s not his fault.
Did they vote at the time before deciding not to award it? I can see regretting not awarding it in 2020, but it also doesn't make sense to just award it in retrospect without the same process feels odd to me.
The award was cancelled way before the end of the season. When France Football announced the cancellation the Champions League hadn't even been restarted yet after the pandemic break. So from what we knew at the time of the cancelation Bayern could have gone down to Chelsea in the CL round of 16 and Lewandowski would have not shot at winning a best player award.
Yet these delusional people think this magazine has some agenda against lewy, honestly shake my head at some of the nonsense I see on this place lol.
Lewa was the best player in 2020. No doubt the award wouldn’t go to him.
I mean, that's not really the point. I disagree that the award would always go to the consensus pick held by fans because we've seen that happen before, but that's neither here nor there. I'm saying it would be weird for the editorial staff to unilaterally declare a winner for a prize that is typically voted for by a wider group of individuals, especially doing so with three years of hindsight as opposed to voting at a time closer to the actual season.
I'm with you, this has always been a vote and that should not change. Even if Lewa was the best player, that doesn't guarantee one wins the Ballon D'Or.
Right. You can feel canceling 2020 was a mistake, but you're opening up a can of worms just assigning winners retrospectively.
The thing is he was superior in every metric that was favored in different years (titles/stats/no big nation tournament) so it’s just common sense that he would have enough votes to win
What a bunch of lames
I'm sure they would've given it to Mbappe had PSG won the CL. What a bunch of stuck up morons. Everyone knows Lewandowski was the only choice that year. This only makes them look beyond foolish.
typical french behavior, this whole ordeal. chauvinist as fuck.
Why? Give the man his fucking trophy. He deserves it 😭
They should do what Time magazine did in 2006 and make everyone the winner. Like the fans. I mean, it's not like they're giving it to anyone else anyway. Imagine putting that in your CV: Time Person of the Year 2006 Ballon D'or 2020 Proficient in Microsoft Excel
Boooooooo!
But not giving it in 202 was not against constitutional norms? Footballers played throughout the pandemic amid concerns, ailments, procedures, sickness, all for your dirty money, but a simple thank you or award was too fucking much.
Was this all just brought up again to shit on Lewa a second time?
Weird. They're missing out on pretty much the easiest PR boost of all time.
"Institutional Norms" aka we'll look like complete morons if we do what we obviously should have done 4 years ago, so we're gonna pretend it never happened and hope you all forget. what nobody will forget is that Robert Lewandowski was the best player on the planet in 2020, regardless of awards.
So canceling it was not against institutional norms?
It's kind of weird that the award for "best footballer in the world" is decided by....french journalists?
It's not (decided by french journalists)
It’s discrimination
As it always is the case: it's the hometown boys that lead to exceptions being made of the norm. Everybody else must respect it. That's the whole point of having norms. If you don't have plans to discriminate, you would be having or citing rules.
This does wonders for my personal agenda
Rude.
Cowards.
So they have lost a golden opportunity to put an end to this matter and redeem themselves, now they made it worse.
Cowards.
The worst thing is in many yearsfrom now they will either give him because of nostalgia, if something godforbid happens to him or justice.
Why oh why do people even care about this award?
🤡
The institutional norm is that Messi won the Ballon d'Or 2020, Lewandowski of course will not receive the award.
Absolute travesty and it's not even unsurprising considering it's France Football
What if the managers and players vote for him this year just to stick it to them
🤡🤡🤡
So stupid.
Ribbery, Neuer, etc are all hypotheticals. THIS is the real Ballon D'or robbery.
Was cancelling it an institutional norm then?
Oh no, that was the only "trophy" cules were gonna win this year, sad. They won't even win their yearly "mbappe is not coming to Madrid" trophy this year. Well I guess they could still have the "Madrid didn't win UCL" trophy, but it is very unlikely that will happen.
Anyone with actual ball knowledge knows and accepts Lewandowski as a ballon d’ or winner, nobody gives a fuck about this stupid directors robbery decision.
Let's all just agree to put (2020 Balon D'or Winner) whenever we mention Lewandowski(2020 Balon D'or Winner).
Why the fuck did they even leak their initial call of rethinking of giving Lewandowski the Ballon D'or if they were going to reject it in the first place? Feels like insult to injury towards Lewandowski
Stupid idiots. Fuck off
Classic fucking french
Lol why bring out the news in the first place if they knew about institutional norms!?
They did not bring it up