Winning the Sixth Ballon d’or, Messi Realizes His Era is Nearing the End

DBasia.news –  The Barcelona superstar, Lionel Messi, was officially named as the Ballon award winner in 2019. This has overall made Messi receive the award six times since 2009.

This made him the first footballer with these achievements. Messi allegedly deserved it as last season he scored 62 goals in 64 appearances and won LaLiga, plus took Barca to the Champions League semifinals.

“Today I won my sixth Ballon d’Or. This is a completely different moment, I live with my family and children,” Messi said after winning the award, on the official Ballon d’Or website.

“As my wife said, you must not stop dreaming but must always work hard to improve and continue to enjoy. I am lucky, I am so blessed.”

At 32, Messi hopes to be able to continue playing and enjoying the game at the end of his career. Messi realized, sooner or later, he would retire.

“I hope to continue this all in a long time. I realize that I am extremely lucky, even if, one day, retirement will come, it will be challenging,” added Messi.

“However, I still have beautiful years ahead of me. Time goes so fast, so I want to enjoy football and my family,” he concluded.

Messi won the Ballon d’Or 2019 by winning the votes of the captains and coaches of the national teams of FIFA nations. Below Messi are Virgil van Dijk, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Kylian Mbappe, Alisson, Robert Lewandowski, Bernardo Silva, and Riyad Mahrez.

In addition to the Ballon d’Or 2019 men’s category, there was also the Female Ballon d’Or won by Megan Rapinoe, Yashin Trophy (Best Goalkeeper Award) won by Alisson Becker, and Kopa Trophy (Best Young Player Award under 21 years of age) won by Matthijs de Ligt.