‘Iniesta deserved Ballon d’Or’

Barcelona legend Luis Suarez has insisted that Andres Iniesta should have won the 2010 Ballon d’Or, not eventual winner Lionel Messi.

The Blaugrana superstar picked up the award four years ago, ahead of his club teammate, despite the Spain international scoring the winning goal in the World Cup final.

But Suarez, the only Spaniard to ever win the Golden Ball, has claimed that it was Iniesta, not Messi, who should have been crowned the world’s best.

“Spain in recent years has done some very important things and any Spanish player could win the Ballon d'Or,” he told Goal.com

“[La Liga] also had two very good players at a very high level, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. But I think that the year Spain became World champions, Iniesta or Xavi deserved the Ballon d'Or.

“Not only because they won the World Cup, and in the case of Iniesta, because he scored the goal against Holland and also won with Barcelona, same as Messi, but Iniesta also won the World Cup and if you have to value what you have done in a whole year, from June to July, then Xavi and Iniesta did more than Messi.

“We should not become confused, the Ballon d'Or doesn’t say if a player is better or worse than another, it says who played better over the year.

“One player can be inferior to the other but played better over a year. But Messi and Cristiano score and they do extraordinary things. I also had rivalry in Puskas and Di Stefano.”

Tags Ballon d'Or Iniesta Messi
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