If you really deep it, Messi’s 8 Ballons D’Or is worth 15. He won them because he was so so far ahead of the rest. Never even gave *one* interview begging for the award. Barça never ran a campaign for him to get votes. His PR was the worst. The entire Madrid based Spanish media was on his tail, ready to tear into him for the smallest mistake. They still ran the ‘didn’t win the X trophy’ gimmick which robbed him off multiple awards after 2015. He had to put in gargantuan performances week in week out to barely win the award. When he didn’t win CL/World Cup, his entire season was written off. Like 2018, when he finished 5th. La Liga was considered as chocolate chips. Copa America became the Mickey Mouse trophy. Ultimately World Cup itself became irrelevant. Funnily enough they used the exact same trophies to rob him off the awards in the past. Now that Kane has won the award without winning football’s ultimate titles, no one’s got an issue. But with the same exact metric, Messi should’ve won 15, and none of you are ready for that conversation.