There is still a possibility for Cristiano Ronaldo to win the Golden Ball for the sixth time in his career. As long as he continues to play at a high level, maintains his top form, and leads Portugal deep into the finals of the Euro 2024 tournament. Regarding Lionel Messi, there is virtually no chance of recovery at this point.

Cristiano Ronaldo was not included on the list of candidates for the Golden Ball in 2023. The primary cause was his deterioration in performance during the first half of the season, which occurred during a terrible stretch in which coach Erik ten Hag was harassed while sitting on the bench at MU. But CR7 will get an opportunity to exact their revenge the following year. In the meantime, Ronaldo’s competitor Lionel Messi has virtually little chance of winning in 2024.

Ronaldo is progressively finding his footing while wearing the Al Nassr club shirt, and he is beginning to rediscover his best form. Recently, he has been on a roll with the Saudi Arabia team, scoring goals on a consistent basis. Due to the fact that he competed in a competition that was held outside of Europe, it is possible that he failed to convince the voters for the 2024 Golden Ball. However, if CR7 has a strong performance and helps the Portuguese squad advance in the finals of EURO 2024, then the situation would be different.

Ronaldo has hope of winning the 2024 Golden Ball

It should be stressed that the vote results for the Golden Ball are directly influenced by the players’ performances at big events such as the World Cup and the European Championship in even-numbered years, when these competitions take place. The situation with Messi this year is, needless to say, a good one. In large part due to his outstanding performance, which helped take Argentina to the world championship and contributed to M10’s presence at the Gala night recognizing the best player in the world 2023, M10 was able to attend.

Messi has only recently relocated to the United States in order to join Inter Miami. Even though he is having a lot of success playing in the country, it will be difficult for those who are voting for the 2024 Golden Ball to be convinced by his on-field accomplishments in the Major League Soccer (MLS). In the meantime, Messi will not be able to follow in Ronaldo’s footsteps and play in the European Championships next year.

Not being able to participate in the EURO 2024 finals makes it difficult for Messi to hope to win the 2024 Golden Ball.

More importantly, everyone has seen Messi’s decline in recent times. His physical strength is not really strong, causing the Argentine superstar to often be overloaded or injured recently. That is the reason why M10 cannot compete with Inter Miami in the final matches of MLS 2023.

With the decline that everyone sees in Messi, it is completely possible to boldly predict that he no longer has any hope of competing for the 2024 Golden Ball. It would not even be surprising if the Argentine striker won. did not make the shortlist for next year’s Ballon d’Or nomination by France Football magazine. 

With Ronaldo it’s different. The Portuguese striker seems to be “aging backwards”. The more he plays, the better he becomes, the more resilient he becomes and truly becomes the person who “carries the team” at Al Nassr. If he continues to maintain this top form until next summer to help Europe’s Selecao compete successfully at the EURO 2024 finals, CR7 will definitely become the brightest candidate for the Golden Ball title.

There aren’t many opportunities left for Messi and Ronaldo to walk together on the Golden Ball Gala night

To be fair, if they return to Europe to play football, Ronaldo is still fit enough to enjoy another 1 or 2 football seasons. As for Messi, it is very difficult. Surely many people have noticed that, since he was playing for PSG, M10 has had to walk on the field many times. It can be affirmed that Messi no longer has enough strength to withstand the intensity of continuous competition in top football. That is also part of the reason why he chose to play in MLS – the tournament is considered a “retirement” place for many players about to return to European football.

In short, if Ronaldo’s chance of winning the Golden Ball in 2024 is 40%, then Messi probably only has about a 5% chance.