Monday night should see Lionel Messi crowned as the Ballon d’Or for an incredible eighth time.
That’s three more than his nemesis, Cristiano Ronaldo, and at least five more than anyone else.
By whichever metric you choose, there’s a cogent argument that the diminutive Argentinian really is the G.O.A.T (Greatest of All Time).
Ex-Premier League striker, Stan Collymore, believes that Messi deserves the award because of his World Cup heroics at the back end of last year.
‘If you’re looking for the fairy tale and the guy that’s come in and almost single-handedly won a World Cup then Messi is a worthy winner,’ he wrote in his exclusive CaughtOffside column.
However, given that Man City did the treble last season and were absolutely awesome whilst doing so, Collymore questioned whether two of their players actually deserved the honour in Messi’s stead.
‘However, if you’re looking in terms of numbers, Erling Haaland comes in and breaks the Premier League record – which is very difficult to do – in his first season, then he has a valid shout,’ he continued.
‘What about Julian Alvarez, who won the World Cup and scored goals, and provided assists for Haaland and his team-mates?’
Like so many, Collymore appears bored by the whole notion of an individual award in what is a team sport, unless there are definable metrics by which a score can be given and the ‘best in the world’ is therefore exactly that because of the highest score.
‘I’m not a big fan of individual awards because they’re so subjective and almost pointless. What’s the criteria? Goals scored? Assists given? Influence over your team or any other metric you ascribe to?’ he added.
‘Then you get people like Pep Guardiola coming out and saying Messi should have his own award, and that will have weighed heavily on the minds of journalists and the people that vote for things like that.
‘[…] Brand Messi and brand Ronaldo have been very, very strong for a long time, but in years to come I would like to see some kind of criteria attached to the award in the same way that you would judge the Golden Gloves or similar.’
What’s almost certain is that no other player will ever come close to matching Messi’s eight Golden Balls, and he will remain forever at the pinnacle of football folklore.
Football will never, ever see his like again.