After winning the second major trophy of his season, Jorginho reacted to his actual chances to possibly win the Ballon d’Or in 2021.
Out of all the Ballon d’Or contenders, perhaps Jorginho is the only player who actually has a chance to defeat Leo Messi for the award. We just spoke about the Argentine’s achievements this year that place him at the forefront of the list. He won the Copa del Rey with FC Barcelona, he won the Copa America for Argentina with undisputed dominance. Plus, he is the player with the most goals and assists in the natural year.
When you stop to think about the possible players who can compete against Leo for this year’s trophy, there aren’t many names that come to mind. N’Golo Kante was perhaps the biggest contender if he ha reached a further stage at the Euros. The same goes for Kylian Mbappe, who had a tremendous individual season at PSG but failed to live up to the challenge with France. Suddenly, Messi stood alone at the top of the list. But the Euros final gave us a fresh candidate if the criteria to win the award is only the collective titles a player won.
Jorginho would love to win the Ballon d’Or.
Even though on paper he does have credentials to win the award, Jorginho knows beating Messi is almost impossible. This is what Marca picked up from him: “We all have dreams. But I’ll be honest, it depends on the criteria a decision is made based on. If we’re talking about talent then I know I’m not the best in the world. But if it’s going on titles, then nobody has won more than I have this season. How could I compare myself to Messi, Neymar or Cristiano Ronaldo?
“They’ve completely different characteristics to me. But, I repeat, it depends on the criteria. I didn’t think twice. After the Under-21s I only played friendlies for Italy, then in November 2017 I was called up for the World Cup playoff against Sweden. Then, Brazil wanted me too. Playing for Brazil was my dream since I was a child, but I thought that Italy needed help. And when I had needed help, Italy opened their doors to me and embraced me. My heart said ‘Italy needs you’, so I made that decision and I’m very happy that I did.”
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