‘It’s undeserved’ – Lionel Messi 2023 Ballon d’Or coronation labelled a ‘farce’ as Germany legend Lothar Matthaus insists Erling Haaland ‘performed better’ than Argentina superstar

• Messi won his eighth Golden Ball
• Beat Haaland to the individual award
• Matthaus believes that Messi is undeserving

WHAT HAPPENED? Messi won his record-extending eighth Ballon d’Or at the Theater du Chatelet in Paris ahead of the likes of Haaland and Kylian Mbappe. The 35-year-old’s exceptional performance during Argentina’s World Cup victory in Qatar, where he contributed seven goals and three assists, fired him to arguably the most prestigious individual award in football.

However, Matthaus, who is himself a Ballon d’Or winner, feels that Messi is undeserving and the award should have gone to Haaland, who scored 52 goals across all competitions for Manchester City and fired the Premier League outfit to a historic treble in the previous campaign.

WHAT THEY SAID: “Over the whole of last year, Haaland performed better than Messi,” he told Sky Germany.

“It’s undeserved that Messi won. But that shows that a World Cup counts more than anything else. For me, Haaland is the best player of the last twelve months won major titles with Manchester City ( Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup in England) and broke goalscoring records in the process. For me, there is no way around Haaland. The choice is a farce, even though I am a Messi fan,” he added.

THE BIGGER PICTURE: Messi expressed his admiration for both his competitors, Haaland and Mbappe, during his acceptance speech and predicted that the talented duo would eventually win the prestigious award in the future. He admitted that Haaland could have won the award this year, acknowledging the Norwegian’s impressive performance during his first season with Manchester City where he went on to better the previous 34-goal record for the most goals scored in a single Premier League campaign by netting 36 times.

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WHAT NEXT? Haaland will be back in action against Bournemouth on Saturday in the Premier League. However, Messi, who now plies his club trade at Inter Miami in MLS, will be enjoying his break from football until the November international break when he is slated to face Uruguay and Brazil with Argentina in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.