it wasn't laughable even before the cl final. it was always a legit opinion. higuain was also a great candidate, and the cl final didn't change too much: higuain was poor out of the box for most of the season, his main skill is to score from the box, while mandzukic is a hard working animal with a completely different skillset.
btw mandzukic didn't have a poor first half of the season. his best individual performance of the whole year came against atalanta, and he did great against samp, pescara and sevilla, too.