Neymar & Messi show stupidity of Ballon d'Or snub

Daniel Edwards

21 Aug 2022 21:50 BST
4 min read

Neymar and Lionel Messi's omission from the Ballon d'Or shortlist was an insult not just to the two Paris Saint-Germain superstars but to the game of football itself.

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The pair may not have been at their scintillating best throughout the 2021-22 season but leaving them out of the list of the 30 top players was an indefensible snub, illogical from every point of view.

The good news is that Neymar and Messi seem hell-bent on ensuring that such a slight never happens again.

Both men continued their explosive start to the new campaign on Sunday as PSG destroyed Lille 7-1 away from home with a memorable performance.

Neymar supplied two of the goals, laid on another for Achraf Hakimi and two more for Kylian Mbappe, while Messi got the ball rolling with a spectacular pass that allowed Mbappe to open the scoring after just eight seconds before adding his own from Nuno Mendes' low cross.

The Brazilian has now been involved in no fewer than 13 PSG goals in just four games, ahead of Messi who has managed 'only' six. But even those incredible barely do justice to the standard of football to which we have been treated so far in 2022-23, and which looks set to continue throughout the campaign.

In part France Football's decision to snub the two aces feels like an over-correction. Messi was something of a contentious choice to win his seventh Ballon d'Or last year given Barcelona's toils in his final season at Camp Nou and the organisers are at pains to justify leaving him out.

“The Argentinian was part of the discussions to integrate the 30, but the new criteria for the Ballon d'Or were unfavourable to him: disappearance of the criterion of a player's entire career, and new periodicity, modelled on a season of football and no longer over a calendar year, which does not make it possible to integrate the Copa America of July 11, 2021," deputy editor Emmanuel Bojan offered in the wake of the list's release.

"And then, it must be admitted that his first season in Paris was very disappointing both in terms of the visual impression and the statistics."

Statistically there may indeed be an argument for the omission, though it is a matter for fierce debate. Messi endured an unusually fruitless season in front of goal, though his elevated number of assists suggest that was at least partly due to taking a more withdrawn creative role.

Nevertheless, he still played a key role in a PSG team which waltzed to the title, and one would think his contribution to the season was just as noteworthy as, say, that of Rafael Leao, whose 11 Serie A goals for Milan won him the Ballon d'Or nod.

It is in the eye test, though, that the argument falls to pieces. Messi and Neymar remain a delight to watch on the pitch, their touch, agility, creative spark and execution superior to almost anyone else in the game.

Current form should play a big part in the compiling of such lists but it is not everything. Failing to acknowledge the pair's contribution to the game with even preliminary inclusion is immensely disrespectful and, to put it short, absurd.

Thankfully, we are unlikely to see a repeat. With Mbappe also scoring a hat-trick on Sunday the partnership between the three superstars finally seems to have clicked, promising a spectacular season indeed at Parc des Princes - and a place for all three in next year's shortlist.