{"id":3563,"date":"2026-09-15T18:02:50","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T18:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/?p=3563"},"modified":"2026-09-15T18:02:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T18:02:50","slug":"lionel-messi-for-the-ballon-dor-diego-simeone-snubs-lamine-yamal-and-kylian-mbappe-as-he-backs-argentine-icon-for-2026-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/?p=3563","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi for the Ballon d’Or? Diego Simeone snubs Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe as he backs Argentine icon for 2026 award"},"content":{"rendered":"


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When pressed on who deserves football’s ultimate individual honour, Simeone did not hesitate to pick his compatriot. His backing comes despite Messi now playing at 39 years of age.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Messi, without a doubt,” Simeone told reporters. “After the World Cup he had, at the age he is, no doubt at all. Messi.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The key factor behind Simeone’s endorsement was Messi leading Argentina to the <\/span>2026 World Cup<\/span><\/a> final before falling to Spain. For the Atletico boss, maintaining elite-level output at 39 outweighs claims built by Yamal, Mbappe, Rodri, Harry Kane, or Ousmane Dembele.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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When pressed on who deserves football’s ultimate individual honour, Simeone did not hesitate to pick…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-laliga"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GOAL20-20Multiple20Images20-20320Stacked20-20Facebook20-202026-05-14T125815.579.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}