The 30-man shortlist for the 2016 Ballon d’Or has been announced and the usual suspects are present, with some notable additions and some interesting omissions.
The prize has always been awarded by France Football Magazine, although over the past six years, it has been awarded in conjunction with FIFA and the award has been known as the FIFA Ballon d’Or. However, FIFA have ended their partnership with the Ballon d’Or this year and the honour will be awarded by France Football Magazine, as it has been since 1956.
The Ballon d’Or has seen the best players in the world given recognition for being the top performer during the year and big names such as Stanley Matthews, Alfredo Di Stefano, Lev Yashin, Eusebio, George Best, Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini, Marco van Basten, Ronaldo (Brazil), Zinidine Zidane, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have all won the award. It is an award fit for true greats of the game.
Since 2008, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have dominated the Ballon d’Or, winning three and five times respectively, which is quite an achievement. Will the Real Madrid or Barcelona man add to their tally this year or can some break the mould and take the award for the first time?
Firstly, it’s worth noting that David De Gea, Leonardo Bonucci and Mesut Ozil are not on the shortlist, to many people’s great surprise. All three performed well for the club teams least season and had a decent Euro 2016. However, two players from Leicester City’s 2015/16 Premier League title winning team are in the list, with Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez getting the nod. Four players based in Manchester, Sergio Aguero, Kevin de Bruyne, Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic are present, as are Dimitri Payet of West Ham and Hugo Lloris of Tottenham Hotspur.
New names, looking to make the breakthrough in the Ballon d’Or include Pierre Emerick Aubameyang of Borussia Dortmund, Paulo Dybala of Juventus and Antoine Griezmann of Atletico Madrid.
However, the favourites to win the trophy are all based in Spain, with players from Barcelona and Real Madrid topping the shortlist. Luis Suarez and Neymar, join Lionel Messi as Barcelona’s three hopefuls but in truth, despite a great year, especially from Suarez, who was prolific at the Camp Nou, none of them will come close to Cristiano Ronaldo. Welshman, Gareth Bale, enjoyed a fantastic Euro 2016 with Wales and contributed a great deal towards Real Madrid lifting the Champions League last season, which should place him ahead of Messi in the pecking order but it’s highly unlikely things will work out that way.
Having won the Champions League and helped his country to Euro 2016 success, there can be little doubt where the 2016 Ballon d’Or will be heading this year and that’s to the mantelpiece of Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese was top scorer in the 2015/16 Champions League with 16 goals, scored 35 times in La Liga and netted 3 goals at Euro 2016, with only one player scoring more. Furthermore, the fact Cristiano Ronaldo won the Ballon d’Or for the first time in 2008, is testament to the hard work and commitment he has put in to remaining at the top of the world game.
Cristiano Ronaldo will always have his critics but there can be no denying that 2016 was his year.