Rodri scooped up the Ballon D'Or, adding to a very successful year for the midfielder. A Premier League and European Championships winner, Rodri has been essential to his club and country and is a worthy winner based on his performances this year. However, the ceremony will be remembered more for Real Madrid's embarrassing and petulant actions surrounding Vinicius Jr's snub.
Ahead of the ceremony, the news broke out that Rodri would be taking the prize, ahead of Vinicius Jr who was deemed the favourite. With this, Real Madrid opted against their participation in the event, throwing their toys out of the pram as their believed winner was not recognised.
Of course, Madrid will be biased and feel their player is a worthy winner, especially in a year where the club won the Champions League and La Liga. But to act as if Rodri is a completely undeserved winner is bizarre.
Traditionally, the award does recognise attacking talent, with exciting forwards who dominate the goalscoring charts being tipped for the award. Vinicius Jr has had a fine season and you can very well argue that his 20 goal contributions in La Liga and six Champions League goals are decent stats for a Ballon D'Or contender.
It's not quite enough to suggest that he's the only outright candidate to win the full thing, especially when you take in consideration that defensive midfielder Rodri had 17 league goal involvements. As well as his, Rodri has been the clear standout player in his position and with the way that modern football is, a great argument can be made that he's the most important player in whatever side he plays in.
If your preference is that an attacking player should win the award, Rodri winning is more of a commentary on the fact that there isn't a dominant attacker who has stood well ahead of the rest, otherwise, they would have won the award. It seems to be of the belief that Vinicius Jr should win the award because he was the premier attacking talent on the club who won the biggest club competition.
But, the award becomes a mockery if you simply decide where players rank based on their teams achievements. You end up with nonsense such as Dani Carvajal finishing in 4th place due to him winning the La Liga, Champions League and the European Championships. He's had a great season but individually, he's nowhere near the best players in the world category, never mind near a podium finish. Carvajal played his part in his team's successes for sure but can you really say that he's had a better season as an individual than someone like Erling Haaland? Real Madrid were apparently under the impression that Carvajal would win the award should Vinicius Jr not, which tells you all you need to know.
If you believe that Vinicius Jr should have won the award, that is perfectly reasonable but to act as if he's been completely robbed is truly embarrassing. It's strange behaviour from the sports greatest club to act in this manner, with the petulancy tarring the whole award ceremony. It’s interesting that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi never acted like this when the other got the award, showing great respect to their competitors that seems to have been abandoned here.
Vinicius Jr has since tweeted out that the world isn’t ready for what he’s about to unleash. Maybe after that, he’ll at least be half the player he perceives himself to be and then can possibly start acting so hard done by if he’s not successful in winning the award. Until then, him and his club are acting very embarrassingly.
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