Rub Messi's popularity? The shortlist for FIFA Player of the Year is controversial

The reporter reported coldly On November 28, FIFA announced the list of candidates for the 2024 FIFA Best Player of the Year, with a total of 11 candidates for the most watched best male player. Compared with the "best in the world" battle between Rodri and Vinicius, the most controversial in the shortlist is naturally Messi. The Argentine champion, who did not even enter the 30-man shortlist for the Ballon d'Or, ended up on the FIFA 11-man of the year shortlist that almost coincided with the Ballon d'Or.

This year's Ballon d'Or is based on the 2023/24 season (August 1, 2023 - July 31, 2024) as the award time frame, and the FIFA Best Awards of the Year period is from August 21, 2023 to August 10, 2024, which basically coincides with the 2023/24 season. Messi's only achievement during the judging cycle was the 2024 Copa America title. However, compared with the king's data of 4 goals and 5 assists in 7 games in the 2021 Copa America, Messi only has 1 goal and 1 assist in this Copa America, and he also missed a penalty in the penalty shootout with Ecuador in the 1/4 finals. Messi was only named in the Copa America team, while neither the Copa America Player of the Year (Ronaldo) nor Golden Boot (Lautaro) winners were shortlisted for the FIFA 11 Man of the Year list.

Messi's Inter Miami won the 2024 MLS regular season championship, but on August 10, when the selection cycle ended, only 3/4 of the regular season was played, and Messi did not win any trophies at the club during the award cycle. During this period, he made 18 appearances in 39 regular season games, with less than half of his attendance, and handed over 11 goals and 12 assists. He has been eliminated from the U.S. Open Cup and the CONCACAF Champions Cup, and this year's North American League Cup was missed in all four games due to injury.

In contrast, Inter's Lautaro won the Serie A and Copa America double and the Golden Boot, and was the winner of the Serie A Most Valuable Player award last season. During the award cycle, he scored 27 goals and 7 assists in 44 games at Inter, and the gold content of his goals in the five major leagues is obviously higher than that of the MLS. The Copa America played four of Argentina's five goals in the group stage, with the winner in the final helping Argentina defend their title. With such data and performance, it is really puzzling that it was not possible to be shortlisted for the list of 11 candidates.

Compared with the top 11 candidates for the Ballon d'Or score, the 11 candidates for the FIFA Award of the Year are less Lautaro, Kane and Foden, and Messi, Valverde and Wirtz are in their place. Valverde is the main player of Real Madrid, the champion of the Champions League and La Liga, Wirtz is the main team of the Bundesliga champion and the runner-up of the Europa League, both of whom have five major league titles.

And Messi's former biggest opponent, Ronaldo, has missed the FIFA annual candidate list for three consecutive years. Last season, he won 45 games in Riyadh, 44 goals and 11 assists, and his attendance, goals and participation in goals far exceeded Messi's, but the team missed the AFC Champions League, Saudi League, Copa del Rey, and Super Cup.

The controversy over Messi's nomination for the FIFA Candidate of the Year this year is very similar to that of 2022. The award period of that year was from August 8, 2021 to December 18, 2022, just after the end of the 2021 Copa America and before the start of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, during which Messi only made 34 appearances in Grand Paris, handing over 11 goals and 15 assists. Although he won the Ligue 1 championship, the Champions League stopped in the round of 16. In the end, he was able to win the FIFA Best of the Year Award in February 2023 by virtue of his World Cup winning achievements outside the selection period, and beat Benzema, who won the Champions League & La Liga Double Championship, the Golden Ball Award & UEFA Double of the Year, the Champions League & La Liga Golden Ball, and the Golden Boot Double Award winner during the evaluation period.

Ironically, the 2023 FIFA Awards of the Year feature includes the World Cup (19 December 2022 – 20 August 2022) and is almost exclusively based on World Cup and Champions League knockout performances. In the end, the top three winners Messi, Haaland and Mbappe were all absent from the award ceremony, and Messi did not even make any statement about the award on social media, which made FIFA very embarrassed.

In this year's FIFA annual awards, Messi's performance was the worst in his adult life, but FIFA still included him in the shortlist, which not only caused huge controversy, but also further reduced the credibility of the award. FIFA has forcibly relied on Messi to attract popularity for the FIFA annual award for many years, and was collectively "abandoned" by the top three winners last year, and I am afraid that this year it will also be a bamboo basket.