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

Gary Lineker – 1986

Gary in Everton shirt

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.