Hot take: Yamal isn't top 3 for the Ballon d'Or, and Messi isn't top 5

Ik I’m prob gon get hate for this but it’s just my opinion.

My biggest problem with the Yamal argument is how much the narrative changed right at the end of the season. For most of the season, the Ballon d’Or conversation was mainly between mbappe and Kane. In the monthly Ballon d’Or rankings I was following, mbappe was #1 for 5 months, Kane was #1 for 4 months, while Yamal only reached #1 once in april ig

Obviously those weren’t official France Football rankings, but that’s exactly my point. I’m talking about what the general conversation looked like throughout the season. For basically the whole season, Yamal wasn’t being talked about as THE favourite. It was mainly mbappe and Kane, with players like Olise and kvara (too bad he couldn’t play wc) also having insane seasons. Then towards the end the whole conversation suddenly shifted massively towards Yamal.

And I don’t understand why simply winning the World Cup should automatically put Yamal above players who had better individual tournaments. If the World Cup is going to have that much weight in the Ballon d’Or, then surely your actual individual performance in the tournament should matter just as much as whether your country won it.

That’s also why I find the Messi/Yamal arguments ironic. One of the biggest arguments for Messi is basically “Argentina didn’t win the World Cup, but Messi himself had an incredible World Cup.” Fair enough. But then for Yamal the argument becomes ,”He wasn’t one of the very best players individually at the World Cup, but Spain won it.”
So which one matters more? Individual World Cup performance or winning the World Cup? You can’t switch the criteria depending on which player you’re arguing for.

And then there’s Olise, who I genuinely think had at least a comparable season to Yamal, if not a better season. I’m NOT saying Olise has to win the Ballon d’Or. I’m saying I don’t understand why Yamal is getting so much more hype when you actually compare their seasons.
Start with the Champions League. Olise had 11 G+A (5G, 6A), while Yamal had 10 G+A (6G, 4A). And 3 of Yamal’s 6 goals were penalties, while Olise had 0 penalty goals. Bayern also reached the semi-finals and lost to the best team , while Barca went out in the quarter-finals not to mention olise was in the best 11 of ucl..
Olise and Kane had more ga in big games. That’s another reason I don’t understand acting like there’s some huge gap between Olise and Yamal when discussing their individual seasons.
Then look at the World Cup. Olise didn’t win it, but individually he had a better tournament than Yamal . He finished as the top assister of the entire World Cup with 7 assists.
Then there’s the league. Olise had 15 goals and 19 assists and was named Bundesliga Player of the Season. But apparently we’re supposed to dismiss that because “Bundesliga is a farmers league” lmao. This isn’t 2010s La Liga anymore either.

And Kane’s case is even harder for me to understand. His numbers were absurd, he won trophies, Bayern went further in the Champions League, and then he scored 6 goals at the World Cup.

I’m not saying Yamal had a bad season. He obviously had an amazing one. I just don’t understand how we’ve gone from a season where mbappe and Kane were basically the main Ballon d’Or conversation for months to suddenly acting like Yamal is the obvious favourite, especially when players like Olise had seasons that were at least comparable.