Erling Haaland is one of the nominees for this year’s award.
“I’ve always said that the Ballon d’Or should have two sides, one for Lionel Messi and one for everyone else,” Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said when asked about the candidates for the 2023 award.
Messi definitely won the World Cup trophy a year later. The diminutive Argentine wants to have an eighth trophy under his roof and there are few rivals who would deny him one.
One man who could stop the former Barcelona star is Erling Haaland.
The Norwegian giants enjoyed a record debut season in Manchester, ending the season with individual and team victories. Haaland dominated Premier League and European defenses, winning the legendary treble with the same numbers as Messi-led City.
It won’t be easy to dethrone Messi this year as this could be another chance for the 36-year-old to win the Ballon d’Or. However, if Haaland settles at Inter Miami, there will be no complaints.
Until October 30.
Haaland’s goal record
Dutch skeptics who predicted the former Borussia Dortmund forward would have a slow start to his Premier League career like Timo Werner were severely insulted last season.
The 6’4 centre-forward, who was naively criticized by some in the social media world after a disappointing performance in the Public Shield, wasted no time in putting his doubters to shame.
Haaland has scored 15 goals, including three hat-tricks, in his first 10 Premier League games and five goals in his first three Champions League games.
The 23-year-old finished the season with 52 goals in 53 appearances for City, although his incredibly high standards slowed his game towards the end of last season.
36 of those goals came in 35 league games, breaking Mohamed Salah’s record for most goals in 38 Premier League games.
Considering the nine assists he provided to his teammates, that’s 61 goals.
The average is 1.17 per round.
Messi scored 41 goals for Paris Saint-Germain last season, but Ligue 1 is less competitive than the Premier League.
Holland trophy
Erling Haaland
Guardiola may have made this Manchester City side the best English football team of all time, but the Spaniard needs a Champions League trophy to back him up.
After years of hard work, he did what brought him to the Etihad.
There have long been allegations that Guardiola could not have won the Champions League without Messi, but Haaland helped dispel that theory as City beat Inter 1-0 in last year’s final.
Haaland scored 12 Champions League goals in 11 games last season and five in 63 minutes in the last 16 against long-time Bundesliga rivals RB Leipzig. The 28-cap international scored home and away in the quarter-finals against another big-name opponent for Bayern, and his consistency in front of goal proved invaluable.
Winning the Premier League was no easy task for City.
Arsenal’s comeback under Mikel Arteta has propelled the Citizens forward, and without Haaland’s flurry of goals from the season opener to the final week, things could have been different.
And of course there was the FA Cup win that secured an amazing treble for Guardiola’s men.
Haaland scored a hat-trick against Burnley in the quarter-finals, despite several first-leg stoppages, and played in both City’s 2-1 final victories over local rivals Manchester United at the start of June.
Holland’s International Deficiencies
FBL-friendly-nadai-exercise
The driving force behind Messi’s challenge for the 2023 Ballon d’Or was his success at the World Cup in December 2022, which saw Argentina claim world number one at the tournament in Qatar.
But it was a different winter for Haaland.
Norway failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup, leaving one of the world’s best strikers in Manchester and most of the world’s best footballers heading to Asia.
When it comes to individual prize money, it always seems difficult to ignore players based on their international success alone.
Especially since a significant number of players represent countries that do not compete for the biggest prizes.
Norway has qualified for the World Cup finals only three times before and none in the 21st century.
It is therefore unfair to judge whether Haaland deserves an individual award based on his international performance when his country lacks firepower.
On the world stage.
Since the beginning of the century, the “Golden Ball” has been won by very few players who did not defend the honors of the great powers in international football: the Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko and the Czech Pavel Nedved.
Norway’s absence from major tournaments naturally puts Haaland at a disadvantage, but given Norway’s international inferiority, handicapping her may be a bit unfair.
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