On Monday, Levan successfully defended his title as World Footballer of the Year. However, as with the Ballon d'Or, the results of the World Footballer of the Year were also controversial. So, why did Messi, who has three advantages, lose the election?
While announcing the shortlist of the three World Footballers of the Year, FIFA also emphasized the selection criteria, and after seeing this standard, the media unanimously decided that Messi would be elected World Footballer of the Year for the 7th time.
So why does the media make such a judgment?
In introducing the Criteria for the Selection of World Footballer of the Year, FIFA specifically emphasized that "the final winner will be selected based on their achievements from 8 October 2020 to 7 August 2021". ”
There is no doubt that Messi did not perform well enough after moving to Paris, and was obviously inferior to the two rivals of Levan and Salah. However, FIFA's statement means that Messi's performance during Paris will not be taken into account.
In the time period stipulated by FIFA, Messi has participated in 60 goals (43 goals and 17 assists) in 47 appearances for clubs and national teams, not only that, Messi has clearly surpassed the two competitors in 11 statistics such as the number of goals, the number of appearances, the number of assists, the number of goals involved, the breakthrough, the key passes, and the creation of scoring opportunities.
Levan only scored well, but the Bayern striker was clearly at a disadvantage in assists, breakthroughs, key passes, creating good chances to score goals, shoveling and other stats. Compared with Messi and Levan, Salah does not have the upper hand in all data, and can only play the role of accompanying the prince to read.
Messi not only dominated the data, but also won important championships. At Barca, Messi won the Copa del Rey and, more importantly, Messi led Argentina to the Copa America, breaking the spell of never winning a national team.
At the 2020 Copa America, Messi won the best goalscorer, assist king, best player and other awards, which is the best personal performance of the competition, winning the championship while winning almost all the awards, which is an extremely rare scene in international competitions.
On the contrary, the performance of Levan and Salah in the national team has become a minus. Levan won the Bundesliga, the German Super Cup and the Club World Cup, but in the European Cup, Poland was eliminated in the group stage.
From the perspective of data and championships, Messi was elected world footballer for the 7th time.
Messi, however, returned empty-handed. In fact, this is the first time since 2004 that the Two Golden Globes and the World Footballer of the Year awards have seen different winners.
There is no doubt that Levan's advantage lies in scoring goals, and during the judging period, Levan scored 51 goals, which is 8 more than Messi. Not only that, but Levan is also good at breaking the goal in key battles.
In the club world cup semi-finals, Levan scored twice, and the final helped Pavard score the winning goal. The three goals he played helped Bayern win the Club World Cup and allowed Bayern to be crowned six champions.
In the Qatar World Preliminary Tournament, Levan scored seven goals in eight appearances and provided four assists, playing in 12 of the team's 30 goals. In the 2 games he missed, Poland lost.
Another advantage for Levan is that he has set a lot of records. In the 2020-21 season, Levan scored 41 goals in 29 games, breaking the Bundesliga record set by Gad Müller with 40 goals in 1971-72.
In fact, Levan has won the Bundesliga Golden Boot for four consecutive seasons, becoming the first player to do so. This season, Levan led again with 20 goals.
Compared with Messi and C Ronaldo, Levan's state has not declined at all. Bayern striker Müller said: "The crazy thing about Levan is that he has made it normal to complete hat-tricks and score so many goals. ”
In addition, Levan may have received some sympathy votes. In 2020 and 2021, Levan failed to win the Ballon d'Or, which made some players and managers unhappy for him, which was reflected in the vote of the World Footballer of the Year.
Excellent goal scoring, stability and sympathy votes became the keys to Levan's victory over Messi.