I hereby declare the Messi-Penaldo discussion oficially over

[Hoops Czar]

Haaland had 0 goals in the semi finals and finals of all tourneys City played in. They scored 12 goals in those 5 matches.

Haaland is great but never had the decisive goals often enough. Much like lewandowski they score when the team scores in bunches, but very very rarely do you recall match winning goals. Haaland suffers from playing on a brilliant team, Messi inarguably had more of a carry job in the NT than Haaland in CL.

Well OK, however, I can't recall Messi scoring a big or decsive goal in the French Ligue one because there were no big or decisive games to begin with. I'm also well aware that PSG won their league by a single point over Lens. I'm also aware that it's undoubtedly the only top five league they would have finished first in. Yes, Man City are brilliant but it's almost forgotten that PSG had Mbappe and Neymar in addition to Messi. That's not too shabby either. Talk about a bunch of classic underachievers.

[Amuseddaysleeper]

Well OK, however, I can't recall Messi scoring a big or decsive goal in the French Ligue one because there were no big or decisive games to begin with. I'm also well aware that PSG won their league by a single point over Lens. I'm also aware that it's undoubtedly the only top five league they would have finished first in. Yes, Man City are brilliant but it's almost forgotten that PSG had Mbappe and Neymar in addition to Messi. That's not too shabby either. Talk about a bunch of classic underachievers.

PSG have zero midfield and very very top heavy along with Neymar injured for half of every season. I totally agree they underachieved, but even now they’re much worse needing a dubious penalty just to scrape a point off of Newcastle. The team was horribly balanced. And man city were the kings of underachievers in CL for many years now but credit to them for getting over the hump now.


If psg only won the league by 1 point and Messi had 16 goals and 16 assists last season so clearly without him, they aren’t winning the league. They also don’t win the league the season prior to him joining. But either way, the team was a let down in CL, but Messi was incredibly decisive in the WC, and that’s why he understandably won the ballon d’or. Haaland is a luxury piece and a brilliant one, but city actually look much worse without Rodri than they do with Haaland.

[DAF86]

Have you ever actually sat down and watched an EPL game involving Man City within the last decade? The majority of teams park the bus against City making it more challenging to score. It's why City has so much possession because opposing teams put ten in the box.

You mean like teams used to do against Messi's Barcelona? You think Messi wouldn't do well and statpad under those cir stances?

yeah, there's more scoring in the premier league in general because the level of compe ion is much greater than that hole of a French Ligue one. The City-Chelsea game was an anomaly. As bad as City's defense has been this year, they rarely give up more than a goal or two. Let me put it another way, if City and PSG switched places, they would absolutely thrash the French Ligue one. City would be centurions every season.

Yeah, because City are the much better side. That's the advantage Haaland had at club level.

Lets keep it simple, Messi won the Ballon D'or because it was a WC year and his team won, not because of his stat padding in a farmer's league. But, it's also pretty obvious that Messi was surrounded by better players at Argentina than Haaland had at Norway. Put Messi on Norway and Haaland on Argentina, Norway doesn't make it out of the group stage while Argentina are still competing for a WC.

Swap Haaland for Messi in City, Messi would thrive under a system and manager that got the most of him, and City would still win it all.

Swap Messi for Haaland in Argentina, they don't win the World Cup.

Simple as that.

But this isn't about hypotheticals, this is about what happened. And what happened is that Messi posted better individual stats while winning the same amount of tournaments, with the difference that Messi won the most important one. Conclusion = Messi was the rightful winner of the Ballon D'or.