I’m trying to be completely objective if the fanboys can please try to do the same. In 2020 and 2021 lewandowski was the best player in the world winning the sextuple one year and then breaking a 40 year old bundesliga scoring record. I get the award was cancelled in 2020 but for 21 the narrative was messi finally got his international trophy so he has to win balon d’or. But Argentina literally have the most copa Americas in history they won it 14 times before messi, he had 4 tries in 6 years to win it. 15, 16, 19, and 21. So was it really that impressive that he won a tournament that him not winning up to that point was literally a failure because of how good Argentina were historically? Im not trying to argue about who the best player ever is or what he’s done in the past. Can someone just objectively tell me that it was impressive and not just journalists being emotional and voting for their favorite player and the narrative instead of the actual best player?
So there is club football on the one hand, and international football on the other hand. If you give 50-50 weight to both, then winning a major international trophy is a big deal. Now if you say club football has more number of competitions, so it should be given 80% weight, that’s where I disagree with you.
The narrative? Bro Lewadowski just got unlucky that year because the ballon dor was canceled. He won the sextuple and had the best year out of everyone in 2020, but it never meant he had to win the 2021 ballon dor. For the 2021 ballon dor, Messi was leading in every stat and had a great year individually. Just because Argentina have won the most copa americas in history doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good tournament by them.
It’s all according to the journalists’ preference, there’s no standard criteria that applies to all cases.