Messi had no serious competition for the award in 2023; his closest competitor, Halaand, did not even kick a ball in the World Cup and was not even the best player in Manchester City; if Mbappe had won the World Cup, he would have won ahead of Halaand; goal is not everything; being the best requires more than scoring a simple tapin against smaller teams and ghosting in big games.
Haaland not playing in the world cup should not have been given the amount of prominence it received. He was a main component of a team that won the treble (Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League) and I think by finishing in second place behind Messi was an injustice to him.
With Messi out of the picture, we're left with Real Madrid PR and corruption, no one outside Madrid is touching it again for a long time.
What you mean is if Messi won it was fair and worthy but if a Real Madrid player including Cristiano Ronaldo won it there was PR and corruption? That simply is not true.
Moving on to the next awards, based on this season are there any players that participated in the Euros that are contenders?
There is no stand out player for me. Personally, I found some of the earlier games featuring smaller nations (or those that were not given a chance by fans and commentators before kick-off) that played exciting football and lesser known players had their moments to shine which was nice to see. Albania, Turkey, Slovakia played in some exciting games and had players that were basically playing as though they were seasoned professionals but these are not names that will be anywhere near award nominations.
Anyway, overall the most complete team to perform consistently to a high level throughout the tournament were the eventual winners Spain and even in that team it is difficult to pick a winner worthy of the award because there is no stand out candidate.
