In a case of voters once again getting it all wrong, Lionel Messi finished fifth in the Ballon d’Or voting earlier this week. But Messi won another award this week that might actually be more valuable than a record sixth trophy for being the world’s best player.
On Thursday, The YouTube Ad of the Year Awards (yeah, that’s a thing), honored Messi’s Gatorade commercial “Heart of a Lio” as the best ad of the year.
If ever I wanted a recommendation on what Netflix show to watch, I’d ask a footballer. There’s no other profession where rest and recovery are so important; outside of matches and the training ground, footballers are specifically instructed to do nothing — it’s pretty much the key to a long and successful career.
After 10 years of nothing but Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, Croatia and Real Madrid midfielder Luka Modric has become the first player since Kaká back in 2007 to wrest football’s biggest individual accolade from the two behemoths of the modern game: The 2018 Ballon d'Or winner is Luka.
We’re not saying this is the metaphorical equivalent of Ronaldinho assisting Lionel Messi for his first league goal back in October 2004, but Messi’s feed for Carles Aleñá’s first LaLiga goal today was pretty special.
While most of Europe (but not the U.S.) was fixated on PSG-Liverpool on Wednesday, Lionel Messi was creating his usual magic in the Netherlands.
Barcelona failed to score in the first hour against PSV Eindhoven, which had just one point through four Champions League matches coming into Wednesday. Then Messi took over and before you knew it the Blaugrana had a 2-1 victory.
Barcelona stayed atop the LaLiga table following a 1-1 draw with Atlético Madrid yesterday, but the Blaugrana stars were less than enthused by the approach of Diego Simeone’s men at the Wanda.
Atlético scored with its only shot on target (a Diego Costa header off a Antoine Griezmann corner), but the home side limited Barcelona to just two shots on frame themselves (a Lionel Messi free kick straight at Jan Oblak and Ousmane Dembélé’s late equalizer).