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Messi, Lewandowski and Benzema aspire to the most uncertain Ballon d’Or

The conquest of the Copa América is Messi’s great endorsement for the Ballon d’Or. / Carl de Souza (Afp)

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The Spanish Alexia Putellas starts as a favorite in the female category

Robert Lewandowski, Karim Benzema or the eternal Cristiano Ronaldo. Many stars, with Leo Messi at the helm in search of his seventh Ballon d’Or, aspire to win the precious award on Monday at the ceremony that will take place in Paris.

In the women’s category, the European champion with Barcelona Alexia Putellas was designated as favorite by Ada Hegerberg, the first women’s Ballon d’Or in history in 2018, but she competes with the Canadian Olympic champions and the Chelsea players, finalists of the Champions League. .

A seventh wonder for Messi? The ‘Flea’ has a magnet on her feet for the leather ball … and on her hands for the gold one. Since 2008, the Argentine and ‘CR7’ have shared all the ‘France Football’ Ballons d’Or except one, the one won in 2018 by Croatian Luka Modric.

At 34, Messi did not have a great year with Barcelona, ​​and his beginnings at PSG have not been full, but at last he guided Argentina to their first great title under his reign, the Copa América, won at the home of his great rival Brazil. Messi would be the second PSG player to win the Ballon d’Or, but the first to win it wearing the Parisian elastic, since the Liberian Georges Weah played half of 1995 at PSG, but conquered it with the colors of Milan.

Apart from Messi, Lewandowski is the other big favorite in the vote of the 180 jurors, one journalist per country (the vote ended on October 24). The Ballon d’Or rewards the class and personality of a player, but also his record throughout the year. Lewandowski would have been the big favorite in 2020, after winning the Champions League with Bayern. But the award was vacant after ‘France Football’ canceled the award of the award as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

Although “everyone saw what I did and what I continue to do,” the Polish striker said of himself for ‘Marca’, recalling that he beat Gerd Müller’s incredible record by scoring 41 goals in the 2020-2021 Bundesliga. “There is no one who is playing so consistently both in his club and in the national team,” said Thomas Müller on Saturday to defend his teammate’s candidacy at Bayern.

Behind Lewandowski, all of Poland dreams of a first Ballon d’Or, after the third places of Kazimierz Deyna (Legia Warsaw) in 1974 and Zbigniew Boniek (Widzew Lodz / Juventus) in 1982, years in which the ‘Biale Cervoni’ reached the semifinals of the World Cup.

Benzema, the French base

Karim Benzema, because of his class and his personality, also meets the conditions to win the trophy. Although he has not won either the League or the Champions League with Real Madrid, and failed in the second round of the European Championship with France. But at 33 years old Benzema is at the peak of his art, and led the ‘bleus’ to victory in the Nations League with two anthology goals against Belgium (3-2) and Spain (2-1).

Behind that trident of favorites, Cristiano Ronaldo cannot be ruled out, who carries Manchester United on his shoulders, to which he returned in the summer. But he could not avoid the World Cup play-off for Portugal and only won the Italian Cup with Juventus.

The Italian of Brazilian origin Jorginho won everything, the Eurocup with the ‘Nazionale’ and the Champions League with Chelsea, but he does not have the talent of the first mentioned, and the Ballon d’Or usually goes to forwards. That reason goes against the interests of the Italian PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who was voted best player of the Eurocup.

The race seems even more even among the girls. For Norway’s Ada Hegerberg (Lyon), “Alexia Putellas has very good reasons to win,” she told AFP, thanks especially to her Champions League victory with Barça against Chelsea (4-0).

But the defeated ‘blues’ also have arguments, such as Sam Kerr, captain of Australia, the English Fran Kirby, or the Danish Pernille Harder, the largest transfer by a footballer (about 250,000 pounds). Jessie Fleming, also from Chelsea, won Olympic gold with Canada. Finally, the Chilean Christiane Endler, who went from PSG to Lyon, can dream of succeeding the American icon Megan Rapinoe, and becoming the first goalkeeper to win the Ballon d’Or.

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