Ballon d'Or: Everyone's a winner, doesn't matter who picks up the trophy

So Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or again, huh? It’s getting old now. Everyone expects it, so it’s not really a major surprise any more. Messi wins, Ronaldo comes second, and the latter has to put up a brave face again, clap in a dignified manner and watch his rival walk away with the trophy for yet another year. Ronaldo himself makes a big deal out of this annual circus, and is blunt about it. The Portugese star wants, and possibly needs, to be crowned the best player in the world, perhaps to stoke his ego, or to write his name down in the history books, so that people remember him. Because Messi will be remembered, for sure. But what about Ronaldo? Is he going to fall through the cracks of time? Will people only remember Messi and dismiss the perpetually-doomed-to-finish-second Ronaldo?

Here’s a list of football players who, like Cristiano Ronaldo, finished in second or third spot for 2 or more years, as far as the Ballon d’Or, or however it was named then, is concerned:

Frank Rijkaard, Dennis Bergkamp, Paolo Maldini, Andrey Shevchenko, Oliver Kahn, Xavi Hernandez.

Anyone you recognize?

If Ronaldo is worried about people forgetting him, then history will provide the answers. The world just doesn’t forget great footballers. We remember all of them, and players like Bergkamp and Maldini are still revered in this day and age. The heart grows fonder in absence. Not winning the Ballon d’Or did not affect their status as genuine legends of the game. It’s what they did on the pitch that mattered in the end. Great players are not forgotten, nor are their great acts. And no one will think less of Xavi Hernandez because he finished in third place for 3 years in a row.

If it’s his ego that Ronaldo wants to cater to, then losing out on the award is not worth crying over either. He still has his medals, goals, ridiculously good looking female companions, loyal fans, gleaming cars, big mansions and a blessed life to look back on. If that can’t cheer him up, then nothing will. But Ronaldo’s had a highly successful career and is a top-level athlete – we have to assume that he is far too advanced to lose his head over the shiny bauble that is the Ballon d’Or trophy, something probably worth less than his diamond-crusted wristwatch.

The fans, unfortunately, don’t have such luxuries to fall back on, so they will vent their frustration. The mud-slinging, whining and bickering will go on for weeks, perhaps till the time the next award comes out. He deserved it; no he didn’t. FIFA conspiracy – the same old crap that we are forced to hear on social media platforms and websites and blogs. It can really get to you, all this nonsense. It is hard to believe that there are educated fans who cannot seem to wrap their collective heads around the fact that this is a cosmetic, superficial and trivial ceremony that has no real significance in the real world. The award show, and it is indeed a show, promises to be over quickly, but instead forces you to waste precious hours of your life on finding out what you already knew. One of 3 supremely gifted footballers will win, people will go crazy and find a way to fight over it.

Who cares, honestly? Is watching Lionel Messi (in a mildly amusing attire) trudge his way up to the collect the trinket more exhilarating than watching him dribble past half the opposition? Is Xavi Hernandez going to forget how to pass-and-move because he had to settle for third place? Will Ronaldo become an average footballer overnight, devoid of his powers because Messi won yet another award? No, no and no. They are all still excellent players, and great fun to watch. And they will probably do many more great things, as they have done in the past.

We should save all the debates for later, when they retire and we no longer get to watch them in the flesh. Players matter, goals matter, titles matter – real football matters. What the hell is all this other mumbo-jumbo?