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World Cup Glory with Argentina Is Key to Lionel Messi Winning Back Ballon D’Or
Published: January 23, 2014
When the Argentine magician won his fourth straight Ballon D'Or award in 2012, it seemed as though we would be watching him shuffle up to collect the trophy in a garish suit for the next decade or so.
When Messi is healthy and in-form (and if he is healthy, he is rarely out of form), not even the magnificent Cristiano Ronaldo can match his impact on the pitch.
But injuries caught up with little Lionel in 2013, disrupting his season and ensuring his statistics were slightly less impressive than in previous years.
A 75 percent effective Messi would normally be enough to secure the Ballon D'Or, but his injuries woes coincided with a hugely impressive individual performance over the course of the season by Ronaldo, who refused to let the prize slip away for a fifth year in a row.
And the Portuguese shows no signs of slowing up through 2014.
It is up to Messi, then, to wrestle the honor of being named the world's best player back from him.
The Brazil World Cup is the battleground where the Ballon D'Or is probably going to be won and lost.
As long as both stay fit, there is little doubt Messi and Ronaldo will each bang in a ridiculous amount of goals for their club sides over the next year.
Should one player score five or 10 goals more than the other over the course of 12 months, it is unlikely to affect the voting to any great extent.
Club trophies may have a bearing on things, though as Frank Ribery pointed out to TZ (via The Guardian), they can also count for little:
I won everything, with the team and individually.
Ronaldo won nothing.
I feel I had earned this award.
It's all politics.
Traditionally, in a World Cup year, the biggest factor in deci...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football
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