The arrival of December means that it’s time for some year-end content. That includes at Time, which announced on Tuesday that it has named soccer superstar Lionel Messi its “Athlete of the Year” for 2023.
Lionel Messi is TIME's 2023 Athlete of the Year https://t.co/qPR75Hgt6f pic.twitter.com/EXqxl08lZN
— TIME (@TIME) December 5, 2023
While Time has only been handing out its Athlete of the Year award since 2019, considering the storied publication behind it, the honor still carries weight. With past winners including Aaron Judge, Simone Biles, LeBron James and the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, the award is just as focused on cultural impact as it is on-field production.
Messi certainly qualifies, especially when considering that it was less than a year ago that he led Argentina to a dramatic shootout victory over France in the 2022 World Cup final. Following what many consider to be the defining moment of arguably the greatest soccer player of all time’s career, the 36-year-old sent shockwaves through the sport when he left Paris Saint-Germain in France to join Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami CF.
As detailed in Sean Gregory’s accompanying profile for Time, Messi chose to take his talents to South Beach over returning to his former club, Barcelona, or signing a lucrative deal in Saudi Arabia, which has inked several top soccer stars, including Messi’s rival, Cristiano Ronaldo.
“The truth is that fortunately, I had several options on the table that were interesting, and I had to analyze them and think, even weigh them up with my family, before making the final decision to come to Miami,” Messi said.
Only adding to the impact of one of the game’s all-time greats coming to America while still near the top of his game — he won his record eighth Ballon d’Or award in 2023 — was that Messi immediately lived up to the hype. In his first game for Inter Miami, the Argentina native scored a breathtaking game-winning goal on a free kick in extra time and he proceeded to score 11 goals in 14 games with his new club.
In a year where there isn’t an obvious answer to which athlete dominated from both an on-field and cultural perspective, Messi is as good of an answer as any, especially when factoring in his impact not just locally, but globally. If nothing else, Time is sure to get much less pushback on its choice than Sports Illustrated has received after naming a 4-8 college football coach its “Sportsperson of the Year.”
[Time]
