There was nothing to criticize about his choice: Karim Benzema (34) had played a great season and was an outstanding man at Real Madrid on the way to the Champions League triumph. So the Frenchman was awarded the Ballon d’Or in Paris, and he deserved it.
What was surprising, however, was the national player’s lead over second-placed Sadio Mané from FC Bayern Munich. According to the scores published on Friday by the Ballon d’Or organizer “France Football”, Benzema had a total of 549 points, a whopping 356 (!) more than Mané (193). Third-placed Kevin de Bruyne scored 175 points, while Robert Lewandowski got 170.
Curious Ronaldo placement
93 journalists chose their top 5 from 30 nominees. They awarded six points for the best player down to one point for the fifth best player. Benzema was voted first place a total of 89 times. Only in Mané’s native Senegal, in Slovenia (De Bruyne), Egypt and the Netherlands (each Mohamed Salah) he was not placed at the top.
Curious and totally surprising: Although Cristiano Ronaldo did not receive a single vote this time, the Manchester United superstar ended up in 20th place. According to France Football, previous nominations were also taken into account in the election, giving the Portuguese a flattering placement.
In addition to the 2016 European champion, ten other stars remained without a voice: Joshua Kimmich, Christopher Nkunku, Darwin Núñez, Antonio Rüdiger, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva, João Cancelo, Mike Maignan and Harry Kane.
Im Latex-Dress
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What: twitter.de/@francefootball, Stats Perform
The Ballon d’Or winners since 2008
2008: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
2009: Lionel Messi (Argentina)
2010: Lionel Messi
2011: Lionel Messi
2012: Lionel Messi
2013: Cristiano Ronaldo
2014: Cristiano Ronaldo
2015: Lionel Messi
2016: Cristiano Ronaldo
2017: Cristiano Ronaldo
2018: Luka Modric (Croatia)
2019: Lionel Messi
2020: no award
2021: Lionel Messi
2022: Karim Benzema (France)
