Cristiano Ronaldo responds to 2023 IFFHS’ Top 10 Players Rankings ft. Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi after being excluded

Cristiano Ronaldo continues to create headlines in the world of soccer, all from the comfort of his phone. The Portuguese striker is already recognized as the best ever in history by many, and he is still performing brilliantly at the age of 38 in the Saudi Pro League.

Recently, he has become the world’s best scorer in the current year of 2023, beating the likes of Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe. But he has not received the respect he deserves and many soccer organizations are not counting his goals due to him being at Al Nassr. And he has now decided to hit back at them.

Cristiano Ronaldo responds to 2023 IFFHS’ Top 10 Players Rankings

Recently, Cristiano Ronaldo once again created history when he completed a brace against rival Al Ittihad. It meant he has now scored 53 goals this year, which is the most scored by any player in the year 2023. The other close competitors, such as Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe, have already finished all of their games for the year.

And despite being the best goal scorer this year, it seems that Ronaldo is not being put up alongside the list of best players. This is somewhat understandable, as he is no longer in Europe, but you would think he would be somewhat considered by major media outlets.

Recently, a news outlet by the name of A Bola shared the results of the top ten players in the world in 2023 according to the IFFHS’ rankings, a prestigious record keeper associated with FIFA itself. Erling Haaland deservedly topped the list, while Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi were second and third.

But there was no place for Cristiano Ronaldo in any of the next seven spots, with his compatriot Bernardo Silva making 8th place. The Al Nassr forward happened to come upon this post and commented with three laughing emojis and a shy monkey emoji. He made his feelings clear that not including him on the list was an insult and unfair to him.

This is not the first time he has done so, as Ronaldo has previously commented on many IG posts after Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or. It seems he has become quite an active man on social media since leaving Europe.

Haaland win a rare award that Cristiano has never won before

Erling Haaland may have been edged out by Cristiano Ronaldo in the scoring charts by 1 goal, but he still won something—not even the five-time Ballon d’Or ever won. He was awarded the IFFHS Men’s World Best Player of 2023 for his great performances.

He is only the fifth recipient of such an award, as it is very rare due to some technicalities. The previous winners of the award were Marco Van Basten, Lothar Matthaus, Robert Lewandowski and Lionel Messi. And this shows a stark difference in eras, with the latter two playing decades after the former two.

It is because IFFHS first created the award in 1988 to commemorate the best player of that year. Marco Van Basten first won it twice in 1988 and 1989, and then Lothar Matthaus in 1990. But then FIFA President Sepp Blatter asked that the award be transferred over to FIFA, which rebranded it as the FIFA World Player of the Year, which continued until 2015.

But in 2020, they reopened the award and first gave it to Robert Lewandowski in 2020 and 2021, and then to Lionel Messi the previous year. This means that the award has only ever been active for seven years in total, with a huge gap of 30 years in between. This meant Cristiano Ronaldo never got a considerable chance to win the award.

How many more years does Cristiano Ronaldo have before he hangs up his boots? Tell us what you think in the comments section.