Ballon d’Or 2018: Ranking the 5 favourites

By Deepungsu Pandit

Modified Oct 08, 2018 19:36 GMT

#3 Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid v Liverpool - UEFA Champions League Final

Ballon D’Or 2017 – Winner

The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2018 – 2nd

The Portuguese made a sensational switch to the Serie A over the summer, after marking his end to his Real Madrid career with another stunning season. Ronaldo won the Champions League with Real before venturing into the 2018 FIFA World Cup with Portugal. However, his time in Russia was unfruitful, as Portugal crashed out in the round of 16, but Ronaldo did score 4 goals in the tournament, including a hattrick against Spain.

Last season, Ronaldo scored 44 goals from 44 games in all competitions for Real Madrid, ending his time in Spain on a high. This included 26 goals from 27 appearances in the League. Since switching over to Serie A though, the Portuguese found it tough to hit the ground running initially. However, he has recovered well since then and has already scored 4 goals from 9 games, and has recorded 5 assists.

Cristiano Ronaldo finds himself in the 3rd position in this list because even though he has performed exceptionally, he found himself slightly lagging behind compared to the achievement of the players above him here.

About the author

Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written over 8500 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.

Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.

Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.

Deepungsu has been a Manchester United supporter since the year 2000. Unsurprisingly, his favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson and the Scotsman helped him get through some of the toughest days of his life. Like the fiery Scot, Deepungsu also leaves no stone unturned when it comes to accuracy in articles and only relies on credible sources.

Despite believing in Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland to create an iconic rivalry, Deepungsu reckons no one can match the longevity of Messi and Ronaldo. He spends his leisure time writing about life on his blog, reading books, and playing the guitar.

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Edited by Vikshith R