If he does, he will become the first player to have done so twice. While Brazil is favorite to win the title, 33% of 720 survey respondents still expect Messi to pick up the Golden Ball award for the best player of the tournament. But he broke the bad run when Argentina won the continental Copa America title last year, fueling hopes he can conquer on the biggest stage of all in Qatar. Messi has suffered frustration at international level - in 2016 he even announced his retirement after losing in the final of a major tournament for a fourth time. Messi said this upcoming World Cup, his fifth, will be his last. “Our analysis suggests Brazil is better than Argentina by the smallest possible margin.”Īrgentina’s squad is dominated by Messi, Neymar’s teammate at Paris Saint-Germain and seven-time winner of the Ballon d’Or award for the year’s best player. “Brazil is the best team on the field,” according to economists at Wells Fargo, who constructed a framework built on 23 different variables including ranking, record and momentum, the value of each team’s players, and the number of times they’ve played together for the national side. That looks like a distinct possibility after the team dominated its region during qualifying games - winning 14 of 17 matches and conceding just five goals. It would be the first time the tournament has been won by a South American side since 2002.īrazil’s national team seeks redemption after a humiliating 7-1 drubbing at home to Germany in the semi-finals of the 2014 tournament. Messi’s Argentina and Neymar’s Brazil head into the World Cup, which just got underway in Qatar, as favourites, with more than half of respondents naming one of them as the likely winner. That’s about to change - for one of them - according to Bloomberg’s MLIV Pulse survey. Lionel Messi and Neymar are two of the greatest football players of their generation, yet neither has ever lifted the sport’s most sought-after trophy.
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