Monday, September 1, 2025
  • Who’sWho Africa AWARDS
  • About Time Africa Magazine
  • Contact Us
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • Magazine
  • World News

Home » World News » Lionel Messi Wins Eighth Ballon D’Or as Soccer’s Best Player

Lionel Messi Wins Eighth Ballon D’Or as Soccer’s Best Player

• Lionel Messi wins Ballon d’Or for record eighth time •Aitana Bonmati wins Ballon d'Or Feminin •Jude Bellingham wins Kopa trophy for best young player • Vinicius Jr wins Socrates award; Emiliano Martinez best men’s goalkeeper • Barcelona win women’s club award, Manchester City win men’s • Erling Haaland wins Gerd Muller Trophy for best goal scorer

October 30, 2023
in World News
0
Lionel Messi

Lionel Messi

542
SHARES
4.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By Victor Mather

The Ballon d’Or, the most prestigious individual soccer award of the year, rewards the best player over a 12-month period. But Lionel Messi essentially won it in just about a month late last year.

Messi, 36, was awarded the prize on Monday for the eighth time, and the first time since he signed with Inter Miami of Major League Soccer in July. Aitana Bonmatí of Barcelona and the World Cup-winning Spanish national team won the women’s award for the first time.

Lionel Messi

Messi’s exploits in Miami, as good as they were, did not earn him the award. Rather it was his performance in helping carry Argentina last December to its first World Cup since 1986. Just when it seemed that he would finish his career without lifting the cup, he helped his nation win the title with seven goals, including two in the final against France. He won the tournament’s most valuable player award as well.

That performance more or less locked up the Ballon d’Or 11 months before it was handed to him. In the meantime, he left Paris St.-Germain for a contract with Miami that pays him more than $50 million a year, according to reports.

ReadAlso

Club World Cup 2025: Full schedule, fixtures, dates and venues for Chelsea and Man City

Lamine Yamal is ‘better than Messi’

When M.L.S. began play in 1996, the hope, frankly, was merely to survive in a football, baseball and basketball-obsessed country. Surely few thought that the world’s best player would be plying his trade in the United States by 2023.

Messi earned the Ballon d’Or for his exploits at the World Cup in Qatar, not the Leagues Cup in Miami. Still, the award was a coup for M.L.S., which has already gained international exposure by signing him. Sales of Messi’s pink Inter jersey have skyrocketed worldwide, putting the league on the map in places it had been little noticed before.

ADVERTISEMENT

Messi’s first six Ballons d’Or came when he was playing for Barcelona, the club team he had represented since he was 13. When that club ran into financial problems, he tearfully left for the Qatar-financed P.S.G. Though he won one more Ballon d’Or there, his time was mostly unhappy, and it ended in a bitter divorse.

Then it was on to Miami, where he hardly looked like a late-30-something playing out the string. He guided Inter to victory in the Leagues Cup, for Mexican and M.L.S. teams, with a tournament-leading 10 goals. But the team, which had been terrible before his arrival, was buried too deeply in the standings to make the M.L.S. Cup playoffs.

Messi has pronounced himself happy in Miami, though “one never completely adapts to this climate,” he said in August.

The pre-award debate centered on whether Messi’s amazing month at the World Cup should trump the fine yearlong play of the Norwegian striker Erling Haaland, who won just about every club trophy available with mighty Manchester City. Voters thought it did.

Messi’s eighth Ballon d’Or is another positive tally in his long-running battle for best player of his generation with the Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who is second on the all-time list with five of the awards, which date to 1956. Ronaldo, 38, now seems unlikely to win any more, especially after signing a big-money contract with Al-Nassr in the unheralded Saudi league at the end of last year.

This year’s Ballon d’Or awards, announced at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, cover performances from August 2022 to July 2023.

Aitana Bonmati

Bonmatí, 25, a midfielder, won the women’s Ballon d’Or, after helping her club team, Barcelona, win Europe’s biggest tournament, the Champions League.

She topped that with her performance in the World Cup, which technically took place outside the window for which players were judged, scoring three goals and winning the tournament’s M.V.P. award as Spain defeated England, 1-0, in the final in Sydney in August.

Bonmatí has developed a reputation as a player who tirelessly seeks improvement, studying performance data, reading and working with her own fitness coach, nutritionist and psychologist. “I try to understand everything,” Bonmatí, the daughter of two lecturers in Catalan literature, told The New York Times in June. “I am a very curious person.”

Her Spain and Barcelona teammate Alexia Putellas, winner of the last two Ballons d’Or, was injured for most of the year.

Source: New York Times
Tags: Ballon d'OrLionel Messi
ADVERTISEMENT
Previous Post

Nyesom Wike’s behind Plot to impeach Rivers State Gov. Fubara – Edwin Clark reveals

Next Post

Lionel Messi: The Greatest Footballer Ever Wins His Eighth Ballon D’Or

You MayAlso Like

The tallest bridge in the world begins pre-opening load tests in Guizhou province on Aug 21, 2025. (LIU QING / FOR CHINA DAILY)
World News

China finishes world’s highest bridge

August 31, 2025
UK

Prince Harry ‘to meet with King Charles’ when he returns to UK for anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death

August 29, 2025
UK

Get your children the chickenpox jab to stop the anti-vaxxers, minister tells parents

August 29, 2025
Middle-East

How former Israeli PM Olmert views the war

August 28, 2025
UK

Prince Harry to return to UK on third anniversary of Queen’s death

August 28, 2025
World News

Chaos at Airport after passenger set fire to check-in desk

August 20, 2025
Next Post
Lionel Messi receives his 8th Ballon d'Or award during the 2023 Ballon d'Or France Football award ceremony at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris.AFP via Getty Images

Lionel Messi: The Greatest Footballer Ever Wins His Eighth Ballon D’Or

People wave Russian flags and carry portraits of Russia's President Vladimir Putin at a show of solidarity for Gaza in Hebron, the largest Palestinian city the West Bank, on Oct. 20, 2023.Hazem Bader—AFP/Getty Images

What Russia Hopes to Gain From the Israel-Hamas Conflict

Discussion about this post

Inside the Battle for Ownership of Madonna University

Stolen Soil, Land Grabbing: Mburubu Community Sends SOS to Enugu Govt

Africa’s largest refugee-hosting country is facing backlash over US migrant deal

Sit-Down Interview With Anil Soni, Chief Executive Officer of WHO Foundation

Six beers that are good for your gut health – and the ones to avoid

NYSC Member Shares Harrowing Experience with Anambra Vigilantes

  • British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

    1240 shares
    Share 496 Tweet 310
  • Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

    1066 shares
    Share 426 Tweet 267
  • Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

    972 shares
    Share 389 Tweet 243
  • ‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

    904 shares
    Share 361 Tweet 226
  • Crisis echoes, fears grow in Amechi Awkunanaw in Enugu State

    735 shares
    Share 294 Tweet 184
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

April 13, 2023

Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

December 27, 2022
Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

September 22, 2023
‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

March 21, 2023
Chief Mrs Ebelechukwu, wife of Willie Obiano, former governor of Anambra state

NIGERIA: No, wife of Biafran warlord, Bianca Ojukwu lied – Ebele Obiano:

0

SOUTH AFRICA: TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE?

0
kelechi iheanacho

TOP SCORER: IHEANACHA

0
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

WHAT CAN’TBE TAKEN AWAY FROM JONATHAN

0

Ex-IGP Solomon Arase Dies at 69

August 31, 2025
The tallest bridge in the world begins pre-opening load tests in Guizhou province on Aug 21, 2025. (LIU QING / FOR CHINA DAILY)

China finishes world’s highest bridge

August 31, 2025
The mountainous northern tip of Somalia’s Puntland State has become the base of operations of the Islamic State group’s al-Karrar office, which coordinates financing for the group’s terrorist operations across African, the Middle East and Central Asia. GETTY IMAGES/THE WASHINGTON POST

Terrorists Killed 150,000 Across Africa in Past Decade, Study Finds

August 31, 2025

Prince Harry ‘to meet with King Charles’ when he returns to UK for anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death

August 29, 2025

ABOUT US

Time Africa Magazine

TIME AFRICA MAGAZINE is an African Magazine with a culture of excellence; a magazine without peer. Nearly a third of its readers hold advanced degrees and include novelists, … READ MORE >>

SECTIONS

  • Aviation
  • Column
  • Crime
  • Europe
  • Featured
  • Gallery
  • Health
  • Interviews
  • Israel-Hamas
  • Lifestyle
  • Magazine
  • Middle-East
  • News
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • Russia-Ukraine
  • Science
  • Special Report
  • Sports
  • TV/Radio
  • UAE
  • UK
  • US
  • World News

Useful Links

  • AllAfrica
  • Channel Africa
  • El Khabar
  • The Guardian
  • Cairo Live
  • Le Republicain
  • Magazine: 9771144975608
  • Subscribe to TIME AFRICA biweekly news magazine

    Enjoy handpicked stories from around African continent,
    delivered anywhere in the world

    Subscribe

    • About Time Africa Magazine
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    No Result
    View All Result
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
    • Politics
    • Column
    • Interviews
    • Gallery
    • Lifestyle
    • Special Report
    • Sports
    • TV/Radio
    • Aviation
    • Health
    • Science
    • World News

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.