Why can’t Lionel Messi win another Ballon d’Or?

His recent run of performances don’t count for this season’s award for the best men’s soccer player and MLS is not one of the top-five leagues in the world but the 39-year-old is just decimating club opponents after driving Argentina to a World Cup Final.

And it’s time to ask, following a fresh reminder of his magic with a pair of outright ridiculous goals for Inter Miami on Saturday — would it be unreasonable for Messi to top this field of competitors?

Harry Kane remains the favorite and deserves his favorite’s seat. Lamine Yamal won a World Cup and La Liga. He deserves next status. Rodri, Fabian Ruiz, Ousmane Dembele, and Pau Cubarsi all deserve their flowers and Kylian Mbappe scored a lot of goals for club and country, too.

But if you want to make an argument for Messi, you can certainly make a strong one.

It’s been fashionable for a long time to take unfavorable shots at Major League Soccer and that’s gets more and more unreasonable every year.

To apply criticism to a home league in the Ballon d"Or debate is neither mean nor cheap because this is meant to judge the top performer in the world and we’d say the same thing if a player was putting up astounding numbers in Belgium or Turkiye.

And let’s be real: If Messi were doing this for Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina, a segment of fans would bypass criticism and boost his presence because, well, the Argentine Primera Division is not in the United States of America (and Canada).

Before we get to the World Cup performance — which is always huge a given voting year — let’s take a look at those numbers.

Messi, in a year he turned 39, has 29 goals and 15 assists in 32 appearances for Inter Miami. He’s only been kept out of the goal contributions column in six appearances, four of which came before May.

That’s stupid at any age. The MLS goals record for a single season is 34. Messi’s missed three games — one for rest in March and two following the World Cup. With three matches left, Carlos Vela’s record isn’t safe.

Why Lionel Messi could still win Ballon d’Or

There’s no fair mathematical way to weigh league contributions against other leagues, so let’s use a harsh metric. Let’s consider that he only managed half these contributions and was still on Paris Saint-Germain, signed for Napoli, or was running the pitches of the Bundesliga.

Something like 15-20 goals across all comps and a further 10 assists.

Would combining that with an absurd World Cup get voters to push him to the podium, especially in a year he sealed his international career and dealt with personal turmoil?

Because Messi scored or assisted in Argentina’s first seven World Cup appearances before the 1-0 final loss to Spain. He played 90 minutes four times, 120 minutes three times, and scored a goal in his only 30-minute cameo.

Messi scored eight times with four assists for 12 goal contributions. Argentina scored seven total goals in which he did not put his name on either the goal or assist line. He scored all five of his sides’ goals in the first two games to earn him a that cameo against Jordan and set up both goals against England in the semifinal.

Had Argentina won the World Cup, he might be neck-and-neck with Kane and Yamal anyway! But that’s one conditional too many for this debate.

Messi would not have a shot at the award if Kane reached the final with England, reached the Champions League Final with Bayern Munich, or won one of the two.

Rodri or Dembele would have the award sewn up had the former not missed a lot of time with Man City — who did not win the Premier League — or the latter won the World Cup with France after winning the Champions League.

And Ruiz’s Champions League/Ligue 1/World Cup treble or Cubarsi and Yamal combining La Liga, the World Cup, and stunning youth could be enough — especially after Yamal came close to the honors last season.

Messi almost certainly won’t win the Ballon d’Or. He has a bunch of them. Voters might’ve been aided by his magical World Cup or difficult personal summer, but it would not be an unfair award.

After all, Kane has done more than enough to earn the trophy but sentimentality pushed him from favorite to near-certainty as he likely could’ve won one earlier in his career. Messi’s got a career’s worth of sentimentality amongst the voter base, which has boosted him to top of the pops on eight previous occasions.

It’s unlikely... but it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?