By Sean Walsh Lionel Messi’s 2023 Ballon d’Or victory felt like a parting gift to an unprecedented era of football. The diminutive and otherworldly forward was rewarded for his incredible 2022 FIFA World Cup-winning campaign with his record eighth Ballon d’Or. He definitely did not have the best season at club level and, if we’re all being honest with ourselves, it probably should have gone to Erling Haaland. But Messi’s victory felt right just in a historical sense. Eight triumphs sounds fair across the course of his career. Having moved to Inter Miami in MLS, he was no longer going to be in …