Ballon d'Or Power Ranking: November 2018

Modified Apr 02, 2020 05:58 GMT

#3 Luka Modric (-2)

Luka Modric and Real Madrid have been in poor form

It felt as though it was written in the stars. Luka Modric looked destined to break the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly. He won the Champions League alongside Ronaldo and played a great role in taking Croatia to the World Cup final and won the World Cup Golden Ball. Subsequently, he won the FIFA Men's Player Award and the UEFA Best Player of the Year Award.

However, what unfolded in October was heavily anti-climactic. Real Madrid, going through one of their worst spells in history, has been an embarrassment and Modric has done nothing to help his case. Los Blancos won a solitary game in the month of October. Modric got no goals and provided no assists.

With Madrid sacking their manager Julen Lopetegui, Real Madrid look a long way away from stabilizing once again. And that may have affected Modric more than most as he drops from 1st to 3rd on our rankings.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Sripad