Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Ballon d'Or, Football, Lionel Messi, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
Chris Nee
Topics: Ballon d'Or, Football, Lionel Messi, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
No football player in history has attracted the individual accolades bestowed upon Lionel Messi.
The Argentina captain has the World Cup winner's medal he so craved to go with four Champions League wins, and has won the Ballon d'Or an incredible eight times.
Along with long-time rival and five-time winner Cristiano Ronaldo, the Barcelona legend inadvertently created the age of Ballon d'Or domination.
At 38 years of age and plying his trade largely away from the global gaze in Major League Soccer, his eighth Ballon d'Or was almost certainly the end of Messi's golden road.
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On the night he was given his final golden ball, Messi prioritised a human gesture over the rigid rules of the ceremony and broke protocol to endorse directly one of European football's emerging stars.
Messi was an Inter Miami player by 2023 and a distant admirer of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the Georgian winger tearing it up at Napoli.
Kvaratskhelia was a fan of Messi too and was surprised when Messi left his seat to pay his respects to the 22-year-old at the ceremony at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris.
"Well, we were sitting at the gala during one of the breaks in the ceremony," Kvaratskhelia told a journalist later.
"He was sitting on my right side. Leo suddenly stood up and I had no idea why he did that and where he was going while we were there. We had been warned to remain seated during the breaks. But he walked straight toward me.
"I didn't know what was going on, and suddenly, he held out a hand for me to shake. I was so confused that I instantly stood up and shook his hand.
"After this, he waved at me and walked back to his seat. He earned my great respect after this. For a player like him to stand up to salute...it was crazy. He's an amazing person, and I respect and appreciate him a lot."
Kvaratskhelia won Serie A as a Napoli player before joining Paris Saint-Germain in January 2025.
Messi won back-to-back Ligue 1 titles with PSG in 2022 and 2023 but it was Luis Enrique's team that was completed by the addition of Kvaratskhelia and finally earned the Parisians a maiden Champions League win.