Lionel Messi appears to respond to Karim Benzema over The Best award criticism | OneFootball

Lionel Messi picked up FIFA's 'The Best' award for the second time in his storied earlier this week, much to the dismay of Real Madrid superstar Karim Benzema.

Benzema, who won the 2022 Ballon d'Or award, finished third in the voting for Monday's prize, behind second-placed Kylian Mbappe and eventual winner Messi.

The Argentine captain had been widely tipped to win the accolade after guiding his country to World Cup success in Qatar at the end of last year.

However, despite Messi's victory being something of an open secret, Benzema took to Instagram shortly after the ceremony concluded to take a cryptic swipe at the result.

Benzema's reaction seemed a little out of proportion, especially after it was revealed that Messi had voted for the Frenchman in his own top three for the award.

Time didn't prove much of a healer for Benzema as he appeared to still be full of sour grapes more than 24 hours after Messi raised the coveted trophy.

This time, the 35-year-old shared a screenshot from a fan account that listed all of his achievements during the voting period on his Instagram stories.

There is no denying that the Real Madrid man has enjoyed a sensational last 18 months, but Messi's recent form has also been pretty special.

The Barcelona legend is famously a pretty laid back character and definitely not one to get involved in social media beef.

However, Messi fans reckon that the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner has clapped back at Benzema's saltiness with an Instagram post of his own - and they're absolutely loving it.

You can check out one of the images below.

Fans think Messi's latest social media posts were the perfect response to Benzema

A pair of images uploaded to his story on the social media platform show a smiling Messi celebrating with the 2022 World Cup trophy. There are no captions, but the pictures do all the talking.

Messi stole the show in Qatar, scoring seven goals on his way to winning the tournament's Golden Ball. Benzema, meanwhile, played no part in the competition through injury as Les Bleus lost out to Argentina in an epic final.

It remains to be seen whether Benzema will pen a response on social media, but given the mood he's been in over the past couple of days, we wouldn't rule it out.