Manchester City midfielder Rodri has aimed a sly dig at Lionel Messi after the Inter Miami forward won the 2023 Ballon d’Or award.
The Argentine international won a record eighth Ballon d’Or after leading his country to glory in the 2022 FIFA World Cup as well as winning Inter Miami their first piece of silverware in the form of the Leagues Cup.
However, with City winning a historic treble and Erling Haaland scoring 52 goals in all competitions, there was real controversy that the Norwegian international should have won the award over Messi.
And speaking to the Mirror, Rodri aimed a subtle dig at Messi’s Ballon d’Or triumph, with the Spanish international saying that awards like this are rigged towards players with the biggest marketing and advertising pull.
Rodri said on Messi’s Ballon d’Or win: “I am not surprised. This is normal. I understand very well how things work in these individual awards. They are based on marketing, money and advertising.
“There have been midfielders before who were also Spanish who did not get what they deserved. Do you understand what I mean? What ultimately matters to me in football is what I achieved collectively.”
Rodi might have a point about Lionel Messi’s Ballon d’Or win
Whilst Messi clearly deserved to win the 2023 Ballon d’Or for his achievements in Qatar with Argentina, Rodri does bring up a good point about the integrity of individual awards in soccer.
A good argument can be made that Haaland was unlucky not to win the Ballon d’Or given everything the attacker did last season, with the City star putting up numbers that Messi would be proud of.
Yet with the Messi/Ronaldo era of domination coming to an end, there’s a real chance that soccer as a whole can now change its mindset on these sorts of awards.
And after Rodri’s comments, show piece events such as the Ballon d’Or could now change for the better, especially with Messi unlikely to win next year’s award at Inter Miami.