Champions League Final – Manchester City – Ballon d’Or 2023: Can Erling Haaland decently worry Messi?

It’s a race that now looks like a duel. Lionel Messi or Erling Haaland? Erling Haaland or Lionel Messi? This is the last question surrounding the identity of the Ballon d’Or 2023. The club season ended this Saturday with Manchester City’s victory in the Champions League. Pep Guardiola’s men have won the Premier League – Cup – C1 treble, Haaland has scored 52 goals in 52 matches, he embodies Mancunian stranglehold on Europe better than anyone and is quite logically among the list of big favorites at the supreme individual distinction.

It’s already a small feat as it seemed promised to Lionel Messi, winner and best player of the World Cup in December. He who does not always need to break everything to collect the Ballon d’Or was offered a unique chance to collect his 8th precious trophy. But the last six months offer a more uncertain end than expected. Because Haaland continued to march on the kingdom of England, offered himself a quintuplet in 63 minutes in the knockout stages of the Champions League and won everything he could win.

The trophies for Haaland, the whistles for Messi

At the same time, Messi sank in Paris, left the C1 forever after an indisputable failure against Bayern Munich, barely gave the change in L1, ended his adventure in Europe under the fed whistles of a Parc des Princes, it is true , not very classy, ​​and was slipping away in MLS. Two opposite trajectories which are at least enough to open the debate: is the month of the World Cup enough for Messi at the heart of a failed year in Paris? Should the World Cup crush everything to the point of caricature? The calendar does not suit the Argentinian. December has never been so far away and the glorious memories of his Qatari campaign have already faded somewhat. If the last impression still has more force, Messi is in danger.

In danger but not doomed. Because by dissecting Haaland’s season, it is not difficult to find obstacles to his first individual coronation. After the quarter-finals, the Champions League top scorer disappeared from circulation and missed his last three matches. In the final, he frankly disappointed, devoured by the tension of the match. The Norwegian missed his big meetings like during the duel against Manchester United in the Cup. The season undoubtedly bears its mark but it lacks the final touch, the one that separates the great players from those who mark history. Quite the opposite of a Messi transcended by the challenge and double scorer in the final of the World Cup.

Final: a double vs a disappearance

Haaland would have had to mark the spirits in the same proportions when the world, or at least Europe, had the eyes fixed on him. Instead, he evaporated. So maybe he will still lack arguments against his Majesty Messi, master of the Ballon d’Or, world champion and much more than that. At the hour of his twilight, the Argentinian holds there his last chance to offer himself this trophy which bears his mark forever and, even if it is unfair, nobody will be able to prevent the college of voters from offering him the outing that his career and his talent deserve. A kind of Ballon d’Or for all of his achievements. It’s not listed in the trophy rules. But Messi is stronger than a regulation. Especially with the crown of world champion on the head…