The 2024 Ballon d'Or has been announced, and as expected, several strong contenders such as Vinicius, Bellingham, Rodri, Mbappe and others are on the list, with Vinicius having the highest probability of winning. After the organizers changed the selection cycle from the original single year to a season system in 2022, although there are international competitions such as the European Cup and the Copa America during this week, the performances of the Ballon d'Or favorites who originally played well in the club were not particularly eye-catching.
Maybe many people have experienced the explosive era of Messi and Ronaldo, various goals, assist statistics and championship halos, so they have some regrets about the performance of many players in this year's Ballon d'Or selection list, but are this year's inductees really not worthy? It may not be that simple, but here's a look back at the individual performances of previous Ballon d'Or winners over the past 30 years.
The 1993 Ballon d'Or winner, Prince Baggio of Italy, was quite beautiful in stats that year, with 39 goals and 16 assists, helping Juventus win the UEFA Cup in 1992-93, scoring five goals in the last four and four games in the final.
Stoichkov, winner of the 1994 Ballon d'Or and known as Bulgaria's greatest footballer of all time, won La Liga, finished runners-up in the Champions League and reached the semi-finals of the World Cup, the best result in the team's history. He became the Golden Boot winner of the tournament with six goals, and in 1994, Stoichkov's statistic was 32 goals and 22 assists, which was quite impressive.
In 1995, the Ballon d'Or was changed from a requirement of European players to anyone who played in a European club, and the winner was AC Milan's George Weah from Liberia, who is the only African winner to date.
Spread out his statistics, in fact, it is not very good, as a striker player only 15 goals and 12 assists, the best result is to play with Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League semi-finals, although he is the Champions League goal champion that season, but only 1 goal of 7 goals was actually scored in 1995; It is also worth mentioning that he helped Liberia reach the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time, and the statistics show that George Weah is indeed not very good, but there is really no better alternative back then.
The 1996 award was won by Germany defender Summer, 4 goals and 7 assists, and Matthias Summer, who was hailed as one of the best defensive players of all time, and he finally won the award because he scored two goals in the European Championship that year, including the winning goal against Croatia in the quarterfinals, Germany won the European Championship, and Sameer was also the best player of the tournament; That year, Da Luo, who actually had good statistics, almost only played in the second half of the season due to injury, with 27 goals and 8 assists, but in the end he still narrowly ranked second in the Ballon d'Or.
1997 belonged to Ronaldo, Ronaldo played a terrifying 58 goals and 18 assists that year, which was definitely the only opponent before the Mero duo dominated the football world. At the team glory level, he won the European Cup Winners' Cup and the Copa del Rey, and the national team won the Copa America and the Confederations Cup. The first Brazil player to win the Ballon d'Or and the youngest player in history to win the Ballon d'Or was 150 points more than the second-place Mihajlovic with 72 points, which was also the largest margin of victory for the Ballon d'Or at the time.
In 1998, the France World Cup, the winner of the Golden Ball Award was the soul of France Sidan , his data in this year was 12 goals and 13 assists, including two goals in the World Cup final, helping France win the first World Cup championship in team history, and Sidan also had the Serie A champion, the Champions League runner-up club glory bonus, and finally scored 244 points in the Golden Ball Award selection, crushing the second-place Suke 68 points, the advantage is clearer than the previous year's Da Luo.
The winner in 1999 was Rivaldo of Brazil, with excellent personal data, 40 goals and 19 assists, helping Barcelona win the La Liga title, at the same time, Brazil won the Copa America, Rivaldo and Ronaldo both scored 5 goals to win the Golden Boot, but Rivaldo scored 2 goals and 1 assist in the final, and the team's 3 goals were related to him, successfully won the best player of the tournament, and the Golden Ball Award was selected to beat Manchester United's treble Beckham.
Coming to the 2000 node, this year was the favorite between Luis Figo and Sidan, Figo took on more offensive responsibilities on the field, 20 goals and 29 assists, significantly better than Sidan's 11 goals and 13 assists; At club level, neither won the title, and the two teams met in the European Championship, France eliminated Portugal in the semi-finals, and it was Sidan who scored, and France won the championship on penalties in extra time.
It seems that Sidan seems to have an advantage, but in the second half of 2000, Sidan was banned for five games for a malicious header foul, which more or less affected his award selection, coupled with Figo's transfer to Real Madrid, this news once made Figo's popularity rush to the highest, and finally Figo won the Ballon d'Or with a score of 197 points.
2001 is the last time an English player won the Golden Ball, Liverpool's Owen scored 37 goals and 10 assists, and won the League Cup, the European Super Cup, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the Community Shield five championships, although some people questioned the gold content of these events, but there were really no international competitions this year, Owen 176 points beat Raul with 140 points, the latter 46 goals and 12 assists in the season, La Liga champion, Golden Boot, Champions League Golden Boot in hand, but still ranked second.
In 2002, the World Cup performance was decided, and Da Luo helped Brazil win the fifth championship in team history in the World Cup, 8 goals won the Golden Boot, and 3 goals in the semi-finals and Brazil finals were all contributed by Da Luo. This year, Ronaldo has actually been fighting with injuries, only 19 goals and 5 assists throughout the year, but he still won the award with his World Cup performance, which allowed him to overtake his teammate Carlos.
The 2003 award was won by Juventus' Czech midfielder Nedved with 16 goals and 13 assists, which is definitely a good statistic for a midfielder, plus Serie A and Italy Super Cup winners, Champions League runners-up. Among them, Nedved scored in the quarterfinals and the semi-finals against Barcelona and Real Madrid in the Champions League, but unfortunately failed to play in the final due to the suspension of accumulating yellow cards; Juventus was able to succeed in Serie A and Europa at that time, and Nedved was definitely an indispensable key figure. The biggest opponent this year was Thierry Henry, with 42 goals and 32 assists, but in the Ballon d'Or selection, Nedved still surpassed Henry's 128 points with 190 points.
Shevchenko, who belonged to AC Milan in 2004, scored 36 goals and 6 assists, won Serie A and the Serie A Golden Boot, and also played well in the World Cup qualifiers. The second in the Ballon d'Or is Deco, who won the Champions League for Porto, but from the data, Deco in midfield is naturally difficult to compare, plus Portugal lost twice to Greece in the European Championship this year, although Deco is not the team's brother, but his performance in Portugal more or less affected a little impression points.
In 2005, Ronaldo Jr. handed over a terrifying 30 goals and 26 assists, while winning La Liga, Spain Super Cup, Confederations Cup, this year his rivals were Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, and Ronaldo received 33 first-place votes on the ballot, with a total of 225 points far better than England's double Germany.
In 2006, Italy won the World Cup, conceding only two goals in seven games, one of which was an own goal. None of the opponents scored in the tournament and the team's defensive leader, captain Cannavaro, became the first defender in history to win the Ballon d'Or.
The winner of the 2007 Ballon d'Or was Brazil star Kaka, who won the Champions League with the aging AC Milan with his outstanding performance in the Champions League, with 24 goals and 16 assists; It is worth mentioning that behind Kaka that year happened to be the two Mero who later dominated the Golden Ball for ten years.
Before entering the ten years when Mero dominated the Golden Ball Awards, looking back at the first 15 Golden Ball winners, more of them focused on offensive players, and the offensive players who could win awards were about 40 goals and assists, and there were also players who played well in international competitions also have a high probability of winning awards, such as Stoichkov in 1994, Samer in 1996, Sidan in 1998, Da Luo in 2002, Cannavaro in 2006, etc., and most of the awards in other years are related to European results.
In the next 10 years, Mero and Mero each won 5 Ballon d'Or awards, in this long 10 years, in addition to the peak Spain in 2010 and the then super Barcelona, let Iniesta get second, the second place in the other 9 years was also covered by the Mero duo.
In 2008, Ronaldo scored 39 goals and 14 assists, won the Premier League and the Champions League, and was also the top scorer in both competitions; In 2009, it belonged to Messi, 41 goals and 17 assists, Barca won La Liga, the Champions League, the Copa del Rey, the first treble in team history, Messi is also the Champions League goalscorer, he also became the first Argentina player to win the Golden Ball, and the only one so far.
In the next 6 years, the two of them will perform even more crazy.
In 2010, Messi scored 60 goals and 22 assists, La Liga, Champions League Golden Boot, and his personal data was amazing, although the team glory was only La Liga champions, but in the eyes of the judges, it was still better than the World Cup champion Xavi and Iniesta of Spain, and the World Cup runner-up Netherlands, the club's treble winner midfielder Snyder.
In 2011, Messi won the award, 59 goals, and assists came to a terrifying 39 times, and this year, Ronaldo's data is also amazing, 60 goals and 21 assists, La Liga Golden Boot, and the Copa del Rey final goal beat Barcelona to win the championship, but Messi and Barcelona won the La Liga and Champions League titles, and Messi is also the Champions League goal king; In the 3-1 elimination of Real Madrid over two legs in the semi-finals, Messi scored two goals, while Ronaldo did not score, which may be the direct reason why the last two can distinguish between the two in the Ballon d'Or.
In the 2012 World Cup, compared to the previous World Cup, not to mention team glory or European Cup results, Messi's record-breaking annual goal of 91 goals, plus 27 assists, and the 2011-12 La Liga 50 goals in a single season is also a record so far, and the Golden Ball Award for Messi is completely undisputed.
In 2013, Ronaldo won his second Ballon d'Or with 69 goals and 19 assists, Messi missed a lot of games due to injury this year, and ranked second in the Ballon d'Or vote with 45 goals and 16 assists. As Bayern Munich's treble winner and the best player in Europe and the Bundesliga, with 23 goals and 27 assists, he has won the Golden Ball in any past year, but the judges favored Ronaldo more.
In the 2014 World Cup year, the champion Germany did not have a player who could stand out for a centralized vote, so it was still Ronaldo this year. 61 goals and 30 assists, compared to the previous year, there was no team glory bonus, this year Ronaldo won the Champions League, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Super Cup, and he is also the Golden Boot of La Liga and the Champions League; Although Messi also had 52 goals and 24 assists, plus the World Cup runner-up and the World Cup Golden Ball, he was crowned without any champions and ended up second in the Ballon d'Or selection.
In 2015, Barcelona MSN connected to kill all sides, Messi scored 52 goals and 30 assists, won the club's treble, won the European Super Cup, tied for the Golden Boot with Ronaldo and Neymar, and the runner-up of the Copa America, the best player of the event, deserved to lift the golden ball.
In 2016, it was Ronaldo's turn to win the Ballon d'Or, in addition to 55 goals and 19 assists, the Champions League and the European Cup, Ronaldo once again won the Ballon d'Or from Messi, and at the same time, Ronaldo also became the only player in history to win the Champions League, the national team continental championship and the Ballon d'Or in the same year.
In 2017, Ronaldo won the Golden Ball, this year Ronaldo scored 53 goals and 13 assists, helping Real Madrid win the first La Liga title in five years, and the Champions League champion and Champions League Golden Boot, is the first player to score in six Champions League group games, and scored 19 goals in a single year in the Champions League in 2017, the highest in history.
The 2018 Ballon d'Or came to Modric, who led Croatia to the best World Cup result in team history, losing to France in the final and finishing runners-up, Modric was the best player of the tournament; Winning the Champions League at club level, although the statistics are only 4 goals and 12 assists, but with the endorsement of outstanding results for the national team and the club, it finally interrupted the Mero duo's ten-year domination of the Ballon d'Or.
But in fact, this year, Messi scored 51 goals and 29 assists, Ronaldo scored 46 goals and 14 assists, and the data of the two is still at the Golden Ball level, especially Messi, but it is more embarrassing that Argentina and Portugal have stopped in the round of 16 in the World Cup. Perhaps because of this, coupled with the fact that Modric leads Croatia with an unconventional power, a variety of factors ultimately affected the judges' willingness to vote.
In 2019, Messi won the Golden Ball for the 6th time, 50 goals and 19 assists are still strong and terrible, but that year Messi only won the La Liga championship in team glory, and only 1 goal in the Copa America, and the Champions League was eliminated by Liverpool in a big reversal, so many people thought that Liverpool defender Van Dijk, who lost to Messi by only 7 points, was a more suitable candidate.
In 2020, it was suspended due to the epidemic, and Lewandowski missed the best opportunity of his career. In 2021, Messi won the award again, 43 goals and 20 assists, while the second Lewandowski lost to Messi by 33 points, with 69 goals and 11 assists, and the number of goals was not lost to the peak Mero at all, but this year Messi won the first adult national team championship at the national team level, and the Copa America final was the king of Brazil; On the other hand, Lewandowski and Poland stopped in the group stage of the European Championship, and Lewandowski himself did not perform too well.
The 2022 Ballon d'Or Awards will be restructured to be selected according to the time of the season. This year's Ballon d'Or cycle is the 2021-22 season, Real Madrid's Benzema performed a miracle in the Champions League, reversing the opponent with consecutive knockout goals to help Real Madrid win the Champions League again, with 50 goals and 16 assists in the season, of which 15 goals were in the Champions League, and he successfully won the first Ballon d'Or in his career.
2022-23 belongs to Messi again, there is a World Cup in this cycle, Messi also successfully helped Argentina win the championship in the 5th World Cup, 7 goals and 3 assists in the World Cup, the best player of the tournament; Haaland, who won the club's treble with his World Cup results, but lacked the endorsement of the national team's results, won the 8th Ballon d'Or in his career.
And then there's this year, and back to our initial question, are the few Golden Globe candidates really not qualified this year? Spread out the data, Vinicius 26 goals and 12 assists, Bellingham 27 goals and 16 assists, Carvajal 7 goals and 6 assists, the above three are also Real Madrid players, the team glory is the same, and they are all Champions League plus La Liga, Spain Super Cup champions, as for Rodri, 12 goals and 14 assists, also has the Premier League title. At the national team level, Carvajal and Rodri helped Spain win the European Championship, Rodri was also the best player of the tournament, Bellingham's England was the runner-up of the European Championship, but England did not perform very well throughout the tournament, Vinicius America's Cup ended in the quarterfinals, but he was suspended for accumulating yellow cards in the quarterfinals and did not play.
In addition, in terms of data alone, Mbappe's 47 goals and 16 assists are actually very close to the Golden Ball level, and the European Cup and the Champions League have also entered the semi-finals, but the performance in the European Cup is not good enough, the Champions League semi-finals faced Dortmund, the fans originally hoped that he could stand up and lead the team, but he was not able to score in the last two legs.
Vinicius has scored and assisted in every round of the Champions League knockout round, including a goal in the Champions League final, a hat-trick against Barcelona in the Spain Super Cup final, 26 goals and 12 assists, statistics and championship glory accumulation, plus position, in fact, can be compared to Kaka in 2007. Bellingham has 27 goals and 16 assists, more like Nedved in 2003 in terms of stats and position.
As for Carvajal, although he has outstanding performances in the Champions League and the European Cup, and the fullbacks have 7 goals and 6 assists, they are also very good, but there is no record of fullbacks winning the golden ball in the past. The last Rodri, as the core of Manchester City and Spain's midfield, 12 goals and 14 assists, full of team glory, although not a World Cup, but also like Modric in 2018, the statistics are better, and it is reasonable to win the award.
Several popular players selected for this year's Golden Ball Award, compared with those other than Melo, can actually find similar cases, if they finally win the award, it will not be outrageous, but it may be that the fans and the explosive data of the Mero era are a little too high for the current players.