To make sure you never miss out on your favourite NEW stories, we're happy to send you some reminders

Click 'OK' then 'Allow' to enable notifications

Journalist's Reason For Not Voting Lionel Messi Proven To Not Make Sense

Journalist's Reason For Not Voting Lionel Messi Proven To Not Make Sense

Lionel Messi failed to be on the podium in the Ballon d'Or this year but one reason for not voting for him has been proved to be wrong.

Ryan Sidle

Ryan Sidle

There was outrage on Monday when Lionel Messi didn't even make it into the top three for this year's Ballon d'Or. Now one journalist has revealed why he didn't vote for Messi and it seems to have been proven ridiculous.

Is Lionel Messi one of the best three players in the world? It's fair to say that there aren't many people who would be able to answer 'no' and then persuade you why, possibly no one.

The Barcelona forward, and five time Ballon d'Or winner, wasn't even in the top three for the award this year. It's the first time since 2006 he wasn't on the podium and 2007 he was lower than second.

Instead Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo and Antoine Griezmann took the top three steps of football's most prestigious personal award.

Spanish journalist Alfredo Relano explained why he voted Messi in fifth, saying, "This was a World Cup year, and in such years we also have a duty to look particularly closely at what happened at the tournament when it came to the crunch.

"And the fact is, the World Cup is something that damages Messi's case, because he doesn't play as well for Argentina, save for the odd particularly good game.

"If he played [for Barcelona] like he does for his country, we wouldn't consider him an all-time great; we'd see him as just one of the very good players on the scene at that particular moment in time."

Of course Messi's form for Barcelona, and specifically the fact he's failed to win an international tournament, has been the stick to beat him with for much of his career.

But Guillem Balague proved, with facts, that maybe Messi's international year hasn't been that bad for Argentina:

Of course it was in 2017 but without the Barcelona forward Argentina wouldn't have even been in the World Cup to start with.

In their final qualification match, with the two time winners outside the qualification places, Messi scored a hat-trick with Argentina 1-0 down to Ecuador to take them to Russia.

Argentina have twice reached Copa America finals and a World Cup final with Messi in the team.

He's still the best player in the world, or at worst in the top two.

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Lionel Messi, Ballon d'Or

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

X

@Sidler28