5 players who could have won the Ballon d'Or in the absence of Ronaldo and Messi

#2 Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior

Neymar was sublime for Barcelona

Since the retirement of Ronaldinho and the Brazilian Ronaldo, there hasn’t been a bigger buzz about a player from Brazil than Neymar. From his days at Santos, there has been a hype surrounding his name that cannot be quantified. And to be fair to the generational talent, Neymar has lived up to his billing at both Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain. He became so good at the Nou Camp that there was one point in time where he was considered the main man, over Lionel Messi himself.

In his final season in Spain, the Brazilian directly contributed to 54 goals in 48 games. That same season saw the forward engineer a 4-goal comeback against PSG, the team he would end up moving to the following season. It is completely undeniable that Neymar was the most anticipated footballer in the world at that time, and in an era without the two greats, the 28-year-old would have certainly been crowned the best player of the year. He’s an undeniable talent that may not be fully appreciated in this testing era.