The Ballon d’Or (MVP for soccer) is an international award for a single player that is given out every year for the best player throughout all competitions. Recently, it has been more based on what your team does than what a player does. For a little over a decade, there have only been four different Ballon d’Or winners, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric, and Karim Benzema. While Benzema and Modric have only won one Ballon d’Or each. Ronaldo and Messi have won five and seven respectively.
Moving on, I am not saying that Ronaldo and Messi weren’t the top players in the world, but some of these wins they should not have won. Like in the 07/08 season, Ronaldo was a top-three goal contributor and won the Champions League. This year he deserved it. But in the 08/09 season, Messi wasn’t even top five in goal contributions, but since he won the Champions League he won it. He didn’t deserve it. Diego Forlan deserved it. Forlan had one of the most impressive seasons in La Liga history scoring 32 goals in 33 games and helping Athletico Madrid to 4th place. Aside from the 08/09 season, there have been two times when Ronaldo shouldn’t have won and once when Messi shouldn’t have won.
Then, in the 17/18 season Ballon d’Or, Luka Modric won it. In 2018 Modric carried the Croatia international team to be runners-up in the World Cup and was on the Champions League winning team Real Madrid. Ronaldo was on the same team that Modric was on and Ronaldo helped them more. This means Modic doesn’t have a case that he was better than Ronaldo. Also, Modric was not able to beat out Messi’s second place in goal contributions and La Liga win. It was a surprise that Modric won it. He didn’t deserve it because he didn’t win the World Cup and he didn’t help Real Madrid as much as Ronaldo and didn’t help Croatia as much.
Next, in the 21/22 season Ballon d’Or, Karim Benzema won it solely because he was top 10 in goals and assists combined and won the Champions League. With Benzema winning the Champions League this solidified his winning of the Ballon d’Or. He deserved it because he didn’t just win one thing he was all around the best.
Lastly, I’m not gonna say that Messi and Ronaldo didn’t deserve to win some Ballon d’Or, but there have been some questionable times they have won it. I know that they were the best players in the world at one point, but that’s not to say they were the only reason the Ballon d’Or went to them. With the Ballon d’Or being announced soon, I know Messi is going to win the award this year because of his World Cup win, but I hope to see the award be more about individual player performances rather than the whole team.
