Messi Plays Down ‘Greatest Of All Times’ Hype After Scooping Seventh Ballon d’Or Gong

By Izuchukwu Okosi

Seven-time Ballon d’ Or winner Lionel Messi has insisted that he does not consider himself as the greatest of all times commonly referred to in football parlance as ‘GOAT’ when it comes to global football stars.

Messi recently clinched the prize reserved for the most valuable player of last season and in a no-holds barred interview with France Football stated that being one of the best alone is enough.

“I never said, thought, or even tried to come to terms with this idea of being the greatest,” Messi told France Football.

“For me, just being able to be considered or cited as one of the best players in the world is more than enough. It is something that I would never have dared to imagine or dream of.

Messi is wary that his comments and reactions could be give wrong impressions in the minds of his critics and duly addressed it in the interview.

“But… I don’t know how to put it so that it’s not misinterpreted. It’s not that I’m not interested in it, but, let’s say that I don’t not give much importance to all that.

“It doesn’t change anything for me to be the best or not. And I never tried to be either,” the Paris Saint-Germain star whose Copa America triumph, his country’s first major title since 1993 stated emphatically.

The debate has raged in recent years over who deserves to be awarded the prize with some football faithful claiming that the former Barcelona man handed the recognition unfairly at the expense of more distinctive players in the season under review.