Monday January 11 in Zurich, Switzerland FIFA held its annual Ballon D’OR award ceremony to announce the Player of the Year Award. To no surprise FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi won his fifth Ballon D’OR, most all-time by any player. On this year’s ballot Messi beat out Cristiano Ronaldo and teammate Neymar.

Lionel Messi and FC Barcelona could not have had a better year in club soccer as they finished the 2015 season with the treble (La Liga, Champions League, Copa Del Rey). Individually, Messi had another great year as he scored 53 goals in all competitions and became the all-time leading scorer in the Champions League history. Messi also dished off 23 assists this season, with 18 of these coming in league play.

The Argentine international has some of the most outrageous career stats of any player since Pele. Messi has 306 career goals in 360 appearances with FC Barcelona, and is one of the most decorated 28-year-old in soccer today. He has won La Liga eight times, Copa del Rey three times, Supercopa de Espana six times, the UEFA Champions League four times, UEFA Super Cup three times, and the FIFA Club World Cup three times.

Aside from all his personal accolades that the superstar has accumulated over his 12 year career, watching the ball at his feet will never fail to amaze any on lookers. Whether it be his huge solo runs that see him beating 6 defenders and capping it off with a neat finish in the bottom corners. Or whether it be his impeccable timed nutmegs that seem to leave even the best players in the world thinking they’ve closed him.

However, despite the career statistics, the accolades, and the five FIFA Player of the year awards, Lionel Messi is still not the greatest soccer player of all time. There is only one thing standing in his way from being considered the greatest of all time and that is the coveted FIFA World Cup.

The championship argument to many seems like a lazy standard to have when discussing the greatest of all-time, but soccer is unique in that both club and country play is held in high regards when it comes to evaluating the greatness of a player. Other sports like Basketball, Football, and Baseball all do not hold international play with the same regards soccer does.

In team sports it often times can be unfair to penalize great players their legacy for being on mediocre national teams, but with Messi this is not the case.The World Cup has not only eluded Messi, but his play drops significantly when he plays for his national team. In World Cup competition he has not scored a goal in any game past the group stage in his career.

The Argentine national team consistenly features world-class players like Angel Di Maria, Gonzalo Higuain, Javier Mascherano, Nicolas Otamendi, and Javier Pastore, who all play in the best leagues in the World. Messi has also been a part of two straight major tournament finals loss with Argentina. The first being the World Cup in 2014 against Germany in overtime and the second loss against Chile in the Copa America Final in penalties.

Messi without a doubt is in the top five of greatest players ever. However, for him to be in the conversation of greatest of all-time he must have a great 2018 World Cup performance in Russia from start to finish, even if he and Argentina come up short of winning the World Cup.

Messi is chasing players like Pele, Diego Maradona, and Zinedine Zidane, for a spot in the conversation of great of all-time. All of whom have won a world cup, and at the very least have given World Cup performances that are remembered to this day.