Ballon d’Or 2016 Analysis: Why Lionel Messi Won Fifth Award

2015 FIFA Womens World Player of the Year award recipient, U.S. and Houston Dashs midfielder Carli Lloyd (R), and FIFA World Coach of the Year for Womens Football award recipient, USAs women national team coach Jill Ellis, pose with their trophies at the end of the 2015 FIFA Ballon d’Or award ceremony at the Kongresshaus in Zurich on January 11, 2016.

Lionel Messi has won the Federation Internationale de Football Association world player of the year award for a record fifth time. While they are voted on by national team captains, head coaches and select journalists, for the first decade that this award was given out, only three different women won it – Hamm in 2001 and 2002, Germany’s Birgit Prinz 2003-2005 and Brazil’s Marta 2006-10. She’s more concerned for the team than for herself.

James Nesbitt was hosting the gala event in Zurich, and even posed for a selfie with the male and female nominees for the top award. “One day I’d like to play in the Argentinian league”, said Messi, who joined Barcelona at the age of 13.

If Lloyd stays true to her own history, it is a given that there will be periods when she does not resemble a world top player – most likely in off-cycles when her national team is playing friendlies and not tournaments.

136 national team coaches, 135 national team captains and 106 media representatives voted for the FIFA Womens World Player of the Year award. The tallies, not-so-coincidentally, gave Team U.S.A. its first World Cup championship in 16 years with a 5-2 win.

Messi has scored 51 goals in 62 matches in 2015, one goal per 101 minutes. The first ever player to score a hat-trick in the women’s tournament final, Carli was also named MVP. In between, the United States of America went unbeaten in 24 consecutive games which included the championship at the prestigious Algarve Cup in Portugal and the seven-game run to the FIFA Women’s World Cup title. Lloyd and Wambach flanked President Barack Obama in the team photograph.

But Lloyd is a complicated sports figure, whose apex in 2015 only came after peaks and valleys in a rollercoaster career. “It has been a dream come true”, she said after winning the honor. She guided the US to their third World Cup win and was certainly the most deserving candidate. She won by a landslide, receiving 154 points from the 72 women’s national team coaches.