For those that don’t know, the Ballon d’Or award honours the male player deemed to have performed the best over the previous year, based on voting by football journalists.
Originally, it was awarded only to players from Europe and widely known as the European Footballer of the Year award. In 1995, the Ballon d’Or was expanded to include all players from any origin that have been active at European clubs and it then became a global prize in 2007, with all professional footballers from around the world being eligible. In short, the Ballon d’Or is the trophy for the best player on earth for the given year.
Now, there have been some pretty suspect victories since the awards inception in 1956, like Thierry Henry finishing second to Pavel Nedvéd in 2003, or Cannavaro’s win in 2006. Some might even say Luke Modric’s win in 2018 was a bit of a stretch.
Another scandalous year for the award was in 2020 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, even though more than enough football was played to decide who played it best – but we’ll talk about that more later.
Long story short, over the last 13 years, 12 of the available Ballon d’or awards have been won by just two players, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, two of the greatest players of all time. Last night, Leo Messi went two ahead of CR7, claiming his 7th Ballon d’Or of his career – a truly astonishing feat.
Whether he should’ve won it or not is another debate altogether, but there’s plenty to talk about after last night’s star-studded affair raised more than just a few eyebrows.
The rankings
Before we chat about some of the bemusing rankings that were revealed last night, let’s look at the top 20:
1st – Lionel Messi
2nd – Robert Lewandowski
3rd – Jorginho
4th – Karim Benzema
5th – N’Golo Kante
6th – Cristiano Ronaldo
7th – Mohamed Salah
8th – Kevin de Bruyne
9th – Kylian Mbappe
10th – Gianluigi Donnarumma
11th – Erling Haaland
12th – Romelu Lukaku
13th – Georgio Chiellini
14th – Leonardo Bonucci
15th – Raheem Sterling
16th – Neymar
17th – Luis Suarez
18th – Simon Kjaer
19th – Mason Mount
20th – Riyad Mahrez
Let’s start with debate at the top; Messi vs Lewandowski vs Jorginho, who most pundits predicted to be the top 3 anyway. Messi didn’t win his 7th Ballon d’Or because of his performances in the Champions League, and it certainly wasn’t from his showing in Ligue Un or even La Liga where Barcelona finished third, so the performances that earned him his crown must have been his mesmeric captaincy of the Argentina national side in Brazil at the Copa América.
Argentina had not won a tournament since 1993 before the tournament kicked off and this Argentina squad is nowhere near as talented as many of the sides that came before it. Yet, somehow the team chemistry worked and captain Messi completely dominated the entire Copa America like no other player had done before.
Messi contributed immensely in Argentina’s 13 goals in the tournament, scoring four and assisting 5 in 6 matches, culminating in a 1-0 victory over hosts Brazil in the final. It was romantic. The one thing that Ronaldo had done that Messi hadn’t up until this point was win a national title with Portugal when they won Euro 2016. It was the one crown missing from Messi’s mantle. A lot would argue that it was the romance of the victory that may have swayed votes in this year’s Ballon d’Or tally.
Second place Robert Lewandowski might argue the same. A lot of people believed that Lewandowski deserved it more. If you look at their stats side-by-side you can see why. In 56 games each, Messi Scored 41, whilst Lewa scored a staggering 64. In terms of assists, Messi register 17 and Lewa notched up 10. Lewandowski won 4 titles and Messi just 2. Is Lewandowski a victim of Messi’s story? Maybe. Nonetheless, the battle between the two of them saw the tightest competition for the Ballon d’Or in the last 5 years. Messi earned 613 votes and Lewandowski 580. Lewandowski didn’t walk away empty handed though. He was the inaugural winner of the new category of Striker of the Year, which seemed to be created as a consolation for a player who probably would have won the title last year had it not been cancelled because of the pandemic. Even Messi believed that, as he graciously mentioned in his thank you speech: “I want to tell Robert that it is an honor for me to be up against him,” “You deserve your Ballon d’Or. Last year everyone agreed that you were the winner. I think France Football should give you your Ballon d’Or so you can have it like you deserve.” “Hopefully France Football can give it to you to have in your home, because you were the true winner if it weren’t for the pandemic. You should have one in your house too.”
In 3rd place, Chelsea midfield maestro Jorginho was central to both Chelsea’s Champions League success and Italy’s victory in the Euros, two massive trophies that earned him a spot in the top 3, only two years after he could barely make a starting spot in Chelsea’s 1st team.
The snub of the season
Last year, Liverpool shot-stopper Alisson Becker was awarded the inaugural Yashin Trophy, the trophy for the best goalkeeper in the world. There was no doubt about that because, statistically, Alisson had the most clean sheets across all tournaments and registered both a Champions League and Premier League victory within two seasons of joining the club.
This year, the second ever recipient of the Yashin trophy was young PSG and Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. A remarkable young goalkeeper who was integral to Italy’s Euro 2020 win, sure – but the best goalkeeper on the planet?
Statistically, absolutely not.
The man the world believed to be a shoe-in for the award was Senegalese man mountain and Chelsea superstar Edouard Mendy. Mendy was scouted by former Chelsea legend and keeper Petr Cech from French side Stades Rennes to stand-in for Kepa who was having a very tough time at the Bridge after becoming the most expensive goalkeeping transfer of all time.
Mendy did more than just stand-in however. The moment he stood between the posts for Chelsea his impact was tangible. Let’s look at the numbers. In 50 games, Mendy kept 29 clean sheets, conceded 27 goals, won a UEFA Super Cup, a Champions League, and won UCL GK of the Season. Pretty impressive, right? In 53 games, Donnarumma kept 22 clean sheets, conceded 49 goals (22 more than Mendy) and won a Euro 2020. Still a great season, especially for a 22-year old, but on those numbers the trophy should’ve been put in the safe hands of Mendy. That’s why the Ballon d’Or feels like a superficial trophy. We’re not saying that because we believe stats and stats alone should determine who wins what, that’s not fair either. Some players play in harder leagues than others – for example it’s a bit easier for Lewandowski to score millions of goals in the Bundesliga because, outside of the top 3, the standard of team just isn’t as high as it is let’s say in the top 6 or 7 of the Premier League or the top 5 of La Liga.
However, sometimes the numbers just can’t be overlooked. There’s hundreds of players that have left these ceremonies absolutely gutted because of a lack of recognition or because of inflated recognition in the direction of a player less deserving. To be fair, all of these guys are making far too much money anyway and you can bet your ass they’ll get over it pretty quickly when they get home to their extraordinary lives, but it’s still a bit annoying. Alas, Messi may have settled the debate last night as to who’s the best player to ever kick a ball. 7 Ballons d’Or is nothing short of extra-terrestrial and we’re happy for him and the fact that he’s still in the conversation.
As for next year, with the way things looks right now, neither Ronaldo nor Messi will feature in the top 3 and you can’t be that surprised. Yes, they’re both superhuman and still pulling off some things that just can’t be explained but there are much better players out there.
Our very very very early prediction for next year’s Ballon d’Or is Liverpool’s Mo Salah. The Egyptian Prince is doing things on the football field that no man should be allowed to do to another man and he’s doing it week in and week out like a goalscoring Ted Bundy who’s thirst for opposition scalps just can’t be quenched.
Anyway, if it’s not him, Lewandowski is having another scorcher down in Germany and Jorginho looks to be getting better every game for the Blues. Whatever happens though, we’re betting on a couple scandalous calls this time next year, because when it comes to the Ballon d’Or – justice is rarely served.