Messi kembali mendapatkan Ballon d'Or untuk kelima kalinya

Is Messi the best ever?

Barcelona and Argentina star Lionel Messi now has five Ballon d’Or awards for the best football player in the world. No-one else has even come close. Is he the best ever?

YES

In terms of what he has achieved at his club, Messi is truly remarkable.

His fifth Ballon d’Or is a huge testament to the way that season after season, he has been the most devastating of players ever to wear Barcelona’s famous shirt.

He has been in the elite of players for over a decade – almost exactly 10 years ago, he single-handedly took Chelsea apart in a Champions League last-16 game that demonstrated exactly how he was already operating at the highest level.

And he has not stopped – a degree of consistency even his compatriot Diego Maradona, one of the two long-standing contenders to the crown of World’s Greatest Player, could not match.

2007 was the first time Messi was nominated for the Ballon d’Or – he came third, to Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo and the winner, Milan’s Kaka. It was the last time one of Messi or Ronaldo did not take the prize.

But whereas the once-dazzling Kaka has faded away into the relative obscurity of America’s MLS, Messi has gone on being brilliant season after season. His career is simply remarkable in its consistency.

He is still not even into his 30s, and yet his prowess in front of goal is such that he was already Barcelona’s all-time top scorer by the age of just 25.

Now he holds world records for the most goals in La Liga, most in a season (50), most in a calendar year (91), most goals in a Champions League match (five) and most times top scorer in the Champions League (also five).

And that is a real indicator of how good he is. Because the level of opposition in the Champions League is far beyond what it was historically.

When Messi’s predecessors for the award were winning it – especially in non-World Cup years – they might only have to play one or two good sides on the way to winning the European Cup, given the knockout nature of the tournament and the fact that only league champions could qualify for it.

But now, a team wanting to win the Champions League has to line up against the best sides from England, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands and so on week after week.

And faced with that, Messi scores again, and again, and again – frequently, exquisitely so.

And he does it with a smile and a humility that endears him to fans the world over – unlike his main rival for the world’s greatest player title, Cristiano Ronaldo.

NO

Always, the debate about who is the greatest ever comes down to how much

But there is no doubt that the two players traditionally held up as the greatest ever – Pele and Diego Maradona – did things for their countries

The fact that Pele is the only player ever to win three World Cups is perhaps the most defining statistic that any legend could have.

Though his goal record of 1,281 from 1,363 games, the third-highest number of all time, is pretty strong evidence too – albeit that much of that opposition was of nothing like the standard that Messi faces every week.

Meanwhile Maradona may only have won one World Cup, in 1986, but he is regarded as having done it almost single-handedly. His second goal against England in the quarter-final of that tournament was 10 seconds of football perfection.

And he did the same at club level, most famously for Napoli, dragging them to their only two Italian titles, in 1987 and 1990, as well as the 1989 Uefa Cup.

Messi, on the other hand, has been fortunate enough to coincide his own peak with that of a staggering collection of world greats at the same club – Iniesta; Xavi; Luis Suarez; Neymar.

When Messi was recently injured for two months, Barcelona simply asked Neymar to step up – and they did not stop winning.

And has long been one of football’s most tedious clichés that Messi is yet to do for his country what he does for his club – but that does not stop the cliché being true.

Argentina rely on Messi to shine at World Cups and Copa America tournaments, but it rarely really happens.

His goals were important as Argentina reached the final of the 2014 World Cup tournament, but in the final against Germany – the biggest possible stage – he was quiet, overawed by the occasion, and when he got a clear chance at 0-0 to win the game, fluffed it badly.

And it is worth noting that neither Pele nor Maradona was able to qualify for the Ballon d’Or at the time – the rules stating it had to be a European player – so no direct comparisons can be made on that count.

Pemain depan Barcelona dan Argentina, Lionel Messi, mendapatkan penghargaan bola Emas FIFA atau Ballon d'Or sebagai pemain sepak bola terbaik dunia tahun ini.

Saat menerima penghargaan Messi, pemain berumur 28 tahun asal Argentina tersebut mengatakan memenangkan penghargaan untuk kelima kalinya adalah lebih dari yang pernah diimpikannya saat anak-anak.

Pada jajak tahunan tersebut, Messi mendapatkan 41,33%, mengalahkan penyerang Real Madrid dan Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo (27,76%) dan bintang Brasil, Neymar, yang juga bermain untuk Barcelona di urutan ketiga dengan 7,86%.

Baik Messi maupun Ronaldo, yang menjadi pemenang untuk ketiga kalinya pada tahun lalu, telah memenangkan delapan penghargaan terakhir.

Pemain tengah Amerika Serikat, Carli Lloyd, yang mencetak hat-trick pada final Piala Dunia, memenangkan penghargaan untuk pesepakbola wanita.

Messi bergabung dengan klub raksasa wilayah Catalunia Spanyol ini di usia 13 tahun dari klub Argentina Newell's Old Boys pada tahun 2000.

Dia adalah pemain kidal namun biasanya ditempatkan di sayap kanan dan ciri khasnya adalah kecepatan menyerang dari sisi luar lapangan untuk masuk ke tengah guna menendang bola ke gawang atau memberi umpan pada rekan satu tim.