I don't think you can even name players in their late 30s or early 40s that have half of what Messi did, man was just on another level.
Man I don't care, this is not the ''Golden Oldfart" award, this is the ''Golden Ball'. He was nowhere good enough to be among top-10, not even among top-30.
He doesn't even play in a European League after all.
The people who voted for him gave him 600+ points. Which means 600+ points were stolen from the players who actually deserved the award. The outcome could have been so much different.
His performance at world cup is good enough to put him in the Ballon d'Or top five.
No it wasn't. Scored a few goals against weak teams, hasn't scored any after the round of 1/8. Awful goal per 100 minutes ratio. Carried by referees and other Argentine players. Even among strikers his performance wasn't in top-10.
Just give it up, he has won 8 (eight!) Ballon d'Or awards. Out of which, at the very least 3 (three) were absolutely undeserved but he had his run, he was very good now let it go. Stop shoving the old man down our throats.
This ain't the 1950s anymore man. Right now, Ballon d'Or or Golden ball or anyhow you want to call it ain't an European award anymore. It ain't also a young player award, which means that you can be in any age bracket and from any club and nationality and still win it
And if you think having eight goals in his eight or seven appearance at world cup is a bad performance, then I don't have anything to say to you again. Yes, the man is already aging and is no longer in Europe but that cannot take away what he delivered on the pitch. Man was outstanding in that world cup. He scored and gave lots of great assist. Alright if you call Jordan, Algeria, Egypt weak teams, what then will you say about England? Is England also weak? Please tell so I can know because if I can remember, Argentina still won England with the outstanding assists given by no other person other than the greatest of all time.
So you can talk about his age all you want or downplay his world cup performance all you want, it wouldn't still remove away what he achieved and what he will still achieve. I blame Messi for all this, assuming he won that world cup, Messi winning the Ballon d'Or wouldn't even be up for debate. Even you would have had no option but to just accept the journalists decision.