Ángel Di María on Lionel Messi missing out on the Best Player of the Tournament award to Rodri.
🗣️ “I’ve shared a dressing room with Lionel Messi for almost two decades, and I can say this without hesitation: what FIFA did is one of the most disrespectful decisions I’ve ever seen in football.”
“At 39 years old, Leo wasn’t surviving at this World Cup he was leading it. He carried Argentina, decided the biggest matches, inspired every player around him and proved, once again, why he’s the greatest footballer in history. If that’s not the tournament’s best player, then I honestly don’t know what is.”
“This has nothing to do with Rodri. He’s a fantastic footballer and deserves respect. But anyone who watched this World Cup knows who the face of the tournament was. Every stadium waited for Messi’s next touch. Every opponent feared him. Every Argentine believed because our captain was on the pitch.”
“Sometimes football gets it wrong, and this is one of those moments. You can’t watch everything Messi did at his age, under that pressure, against the best teams in the world, and then tell me someone else defined the tournament more than he did. That’s impossible for me to accept.”
“They can keep the trophy. They can keep the votes. History won’t remember a voting panel it will remember that a 39-year-old Lionel Messi walked into another World Cup, dominated the biggest stage in football and reminded the entire world why no one has ever reached his level. For me, he’ll always be the real Golden Ball winner.”