Assessing Messi’s FIFA award as the Ballon d’Or looms

The reactions to Lionel Messi’s sixth win of a best player of the year award, in this case the FIFA Best (once FIFA/Ballon d’Or) award for the 2018-2019 year, has been mixed and intense.

For Messi fans, any year without a Best or Golden award strikes them as the result of a wide-spread conspiracy against their hero. The thinking goes that the best player of the world should always win, sometimes regardless of the year he or his competitors have had. If he scores a lot of goals, or has a lot of assists, or scores beautiful goals, then that’s enough for the year.

For Cristiano Ronaldo fans, any year without similar recognition is treated as a sign of institutional bias against their man. The thinking goes that CR7 needs to have an otherworldly year to win the award while Lionel can simply have a good one to win. Even leading Portugal to Nations League glory while winning his domestic league and doing so while adjusting to a new team is not enough for Ronnie.

For all other comers, breaking into the duopoly of the past many years (wherein Lio and Ronnie stood at five trophies each) is often praise enough, as everyone recognizes we are living in an era of super players—Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar, Mbappe, to name a few obvious ones.

How does one assess the tie-breaking sixth trophy for the diminutive Argentine?

Let’s begin by understanding the parameters of the FIFA Best award. FIFA rules tell us that the award is based on “achievements during the period July 16, 2018 to July 19, 2019” and are to be “bestowed according to on-field performance and overall behavior on and off the pitch.” Note there is no mention of performance at club level only, or of on-field exploits in a given competition or continent.

So, the first point to make is obvious. For Lionel’s fans, CR7’s messy Las Vegas exploits, even if pre-historic, unproven, and with charges dropped, undoubtedly disqualify Ronaldo as a Bestie. For Cristiano’s fans, Messi’s recorded rant after losing to Brazil in the Copa America (calling the tournament fixed), certainly sounded like grounds for disqualification. Should the perennial two have even been in contention in 2019? Were the yardsticks comparable if they had not been?

Given FIFA’s rules, if one accepts the perennials were disqualified the only choice was Virgil van Dijk whose on-field exploits over the time frame in question seem to have been accomplished without publicly recorded or media-insinuated besmirching behavior. But, if all three were still in contention, why Messi?

Yes, Lionel did have a great year, but so did his competitors and in the eyes of most, including those who voted van Dijk best in Europe, it was van Dijk who excelled in the twelve-month-period under review. Given all three finalists played in Europe it boggles the mind to think that the winner of the award for the best performer on that continent would not also be considered the world-wide Bestie given a lack of a comparably dominant performer on any other continent.

Outside Europe, Messi played ok, but he failed to help Argentina reach the final of Copa America while in Europe Ronaldo won the Nations League, coincidentally besting van Dijk who also got his nation to the final. So, why Messi? What would have been the problem with back to back non-Messi-or-Ronaldo wins?

And some might argue the question seems to be the issue: for the sports’ global marketing to be at its peak (and we all know who benefits most if it does, FIFA) you need that miraculous rivalry that has ignited debate and filled stadiums and engendered pageviews and given nations and continents bragging rights. With Europe pulling away in World Cup wins 12-9 and Messi looking to retire after the coming home-stand Copa America, and December 2022 World Cup, by which time he will be 35.5 years old, could FIFA afford another European victory? No, it would seem they could not.

The FIFA Best Vote

But the bottom line lies in the voting itself. Who votes and how did their votes get counted?

Well, first of all, there is a selection panel of experts (last year’s group included Kaka, Fabio Capello, Ronaldo Nazario, Didier Drogba and Frank Lampart) that produces the awards’ shortlist. Then, the fans vote, but as FIFA’s site tells us: “Only registered members of The Club at FIFA.com can vote for The Best FIFA Awards.”

But the fans’ collective vote is only 25% of the total voting. The remaining 75% are distributed equally between “national coaches of FIFA Member Associations and their team captains, and a select group of journalists from those same countries.” And the numbers of people voting per category are similar but not equal: Captains—168, Coaches—169, Media—166.

Finally, there is some weighting process that produces “ranking points.” In this year’s voting Messi got 46 ranking points to Van Dijk’s 38 and Ronaldo’s 36. This would seem to indicate that Lionel got 17.4% more support than Virgil and 21.7% more than Ronnie. Was Messi that much more dominant than the other two?

Ultimately, what is most fascinating are the differences among voting blocks. Among Coaches and Captains Messi had a convincing but not overwhelming lead. Among Fans, Messi was the overwhelming winner. Van Dijk won overwhelmingly among the Media, and Ronaldo came in second with Coaches and Fans, but third among Media and Captains. In fact, the media gave Messi nearly 100 more points and van Dijk nearly 200 more points than Ronaldo. The final voting score was:

What does this tell us about the upcoming Ballon d’Or?

It says that while there is a great divide among the voting blocks that account for the final tally in the FIFA Best, and there is the FIFA-factor to add into the mix—that factor being their credibility when their best interests go up against anything and anyone, fair play included—the Ballon award is given out via a media only vote. So, the best guess is that we will have a split best-player-of-the-year vote in 2019 and Virgil van Dijk will emerge victorious.