Ballon D'Or: 3 Players in history who were criminally neglected for the top award

Ballon d'Or in French means Golden Ball and is awarded by France Football magazine along with French press and media for the best football player that particular year through a voting system where media person from 30 different countries vote to select the best footballer.

From 2010 to 2015 both FIFA and France Football collaborated thereby merging FIFA Best player award and Ballon d’Or, with Captains and coaches of the countries to vote alongside international journalists from all FIFA member nations.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have won the prestigious award five times thereby tying the record for the most number of wins. Three players have won the award three times each: Johan Cruyff of Ajax and Barcelona, Michael Platini of Juventus and Marco van Basten of Milan.

With seven awards each, Dutch, German and Portuguese players won the most Ballons d'Or. Only Germany (1972) and the Netherlands (1988) took all three top spots in one year. Two Spanish clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid share the top for employing the most winners, with eleven wins each. Eight players (Bobby Charlton, Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Muller, Paolo Rossi, Zinedine Zidane, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Kaka) have won the FIFA World Cup, the European Cup/UEFA Champions League and the Ballon d'Or during their careers.

The dream of every football player is to win the coveted award and the criteria to achieve is often not understood by the people and even the players as sometimes players are awarded on the basis of individual performance but other times along with individual performances, medals and honours are also taken into consideration.

There have been many controversies regarding the credibility of the award with the recent one (2018) being awarded to Luka Modric from Croatia over Ronaldo and Messi positioned in 5th place even though stats suggest Messi had better season individually. Following listed are the players who had a better season than the respective winners but were criminally overlooked for the Golden Ball.

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Wesley Sneijder – 2010

Inter Milan, under Mourinho won an unprecedented treble and Sneijder was the focal point of the team. More often than not he turned up during the big occasions and delivered good performances one after the another. He scored the very next day after he was unveiled as the Inter player against their derby rivals AC Milan. His exploits during that season were so incredible that he was nicknamed “The Sniper” for his super sharp passing vision and long range shooting ability.

Sneijder's most important contribution came during the first leg of the semi final tie against FC Barcelona in Champions League. Going into the tie, Barcelona were considered heavy favourites owing to the unstoppable force created by Guardiola. But a tactical masterpiece by Mourinho saw Inter winning 3-1 at San Siro with Sneijder notching up an all important equalizer after Barcelona scored an early goal.

The second leg however saw Barcelona win by 1-0 thereby settling the tie 3-2 in the favour of Inter Milan. What followed was one of the most controversial and infamous run-in celebration by Mourinho at Camp Nou. Inter went onto win the final against Bayern, 2-0, with Sneijder providing an assist.

Inter won their 18th Serie A by 2 points that season from a second placed Roma and beating Roma again in the final of Coppa Italia thereby becoming the first and only team from Italy till date to win a continental treble.

Sneijder was adjudged best midfielder by UEFA but was placed only fourth in Ballon d’Or standings with Messi winning and Xavi, Iniesta completing the podium creating a huge controversy over Sneijder’s position. One of the most underrated and under appreciated genius who at least deserved to be on the final podium in 2010.

Franck Ribery – 2013

In what was one of the most closely contested podiums for Ballon d’Or, Cristiano Ronaldo ended up winning the coveted prize thereby ending Messi’s 4 consecutive wins. As with the case of Sneijder, Ribery won the treble with Bayern Munich. In yet another case of confusing Ballon d’Or voting, Ribery came only third behind Ronaldo and Messi.

What more surprising is the fact, Real Madrid went trophy less that season. The argument placed forward in favour of Ronaldo is his contribution individually, scoring 66 goals that season in 56 matches, followed by his contribution in Portugal’s run in world cup qualifiers.

After two consecutive Bundesliga seasons where high flying Borussia Dortmund under Jurgen Klopp pipped the record champions Bayern Munich, 2012-13 season was all about redemption. Bayern just lost only one match the entire season in Bundesliga scoring 98 goals and conceding a meager 18 goals and won their 23rd league title by a margin of 25 points over second placed Dortmund.

Ribery notched up 15 assists and 10 goals that particular season in Bundesliga alone. One of the most notable performance in Champions League by Bayern was the complete domination of Barcelona resulting in 7-0 over both the legs. Ribery’s contribution defensively over Barcelona was applauded by the plaudits and was instrumental in Final against Dortmund by setting up the Robben’s winner to win the Champions league 2-1 over their arch-rivals.

Bayern defeated Stuggart to win their DFB pokal thereby completing the treble and becoming first German team to achieve the feat. Ribery notched up 22 goals and 18 assists that season in all competitions while contributing defensively with 49 tackles with a success rate of 89.1%. Ribery also won the UEFA player of the season award for his contributions. To this date it remains a mystery on how Ribery missed out on winning the 2013 Ballon d’Or. Jupp Heynekes won the best coach award that year with more than 55% of the votes.

Gary Lineker – 1986

Nowadays many people see Gary as a presenter and pundit and not realize how great the man was during his playing career. He is only of the few English players to have a very successful playing career outside United Kingdom with Barcelona.

One of the very distinguished record he only holds is that he never received a yellow or red card during his entire career and he is the highest goal scorer for England in their world cup history.

Having had a wonderful career with Leicester City where he won league’s top scorer award with 24 goals to his name, Gary moved the following season and had his personal best season during 1985-86 season when he moved for Everton even surpassing his previous tally by scoring 30 goals in the league alone helping Everton to a second placed finish just behind their Merseyside rivals Liverpool by 2 points.

The FA cup final that year was also a Merseyside derby but once again Liverpool pipped their rivals to win the double but Lineker scored in the final thereby raising his tally to 5 goals in 6 matches in the competition. Overall he scored 38 goals in 52 matches that season which is a significantly higher number during that period.

Gary also played a huge part in England’s run in World cup 1986 to 4th place finish where he ended up the top scorer in the competition with 6 goals to his name. Following his consistent performances with club and country, he moved to Barcelona in 1986 where he scored 20 goals in his debut season.

Even though his numbers are unreal during that time, he ended up only second place in race to Ballon d’Or losing to Igor Belanov of Soviet Union who played for Dynamo Kyiv for that season by 16 points. When numbers are compared, Igor scored only 14 goals in 32 appearances that season but won Soviet league and UEFA winner’s cup that season. But the controversy still prevails regarding the decision to snub Lineker for Belanov.

Edited by Kingshuk Kusari