This was Cristiano Ronaldo's ironic reaction to Messi's eighth Ballon d'Or

This Monday, the Ballon d'Or awards organized by France Football magazine since 1956 were presented in Paris. There, Lionel Messi and Aitana Bonmatí were the big winners of the night, each taking home the trophy for the best player in the world in the 2022/23 season. For the Argentine forward it was the eighth award in his 19-year career, an impressive achievement that is unlikely to be matched by anyone else in the future.

Closest to Leo is Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese striker is the other great soccer star of the 21st century and has won the trophy 5 times, most recently in 2017. But in recent years the Argentine player has pulled far ahead of him and this time CR7 was not even nominated among the 30 finalists and was absent at the event in Paris.

He was, however, attentive to what happened. For more than a decade he competed with Messi for the throne of world soccer and it is hard to believe that he no longer cares what happens to his rival. But the way he chose to express his opinion was unexpected.

The Spanish newspaper AS, on its official Instagram account, posted a video of the journalist Tomás Roncero, who more than once has acknowledged being a Real Madrid fan and very critical of Lionel Messi. There he said: “Well, friends. What we knew happened. Messi was going to be awarded another Ballon d'Or. As a tribute it is fine, it is a good tribute to his career as a footballer. He has been retired for a few months in Miami, he already seemed to be retired at PSG because he was preparing to play the World Cup”.

What did Cristiano do?

Ronaldo surprised everyone by writing a comment on the post on Instagram of the newspaper AS. His response was four emojis of laughing faces. It is clear that CR7 was amused by Roncero's words. And he is not happy about the award Messi received.