Lionel Messi is the only player to win the Ballon d'Or 4 times in a row
#4 Marco van Basten (Netherlands, AC Milan)
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Marco Van Basten
The Dutch legend, Marco van Basten, rose through the ranks at Ajax, after joining the club as a teenager and soon turned into one of the craftiest footballers in the world. His performances earned him a move to Italy, where he joined AC Milan in 1987 and enjoyed tremendous success. The Dutchman could only manage 8 goals from 19 appearances in all competitions in his debut season, as he was hounded by a niggling ankle injury.
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The following season though, van Basten picked up the pace and managed to find the back of the net 33 times in 47 games in all competition. In 1988, he received 129 points and beat fellow countrymen and club mates Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard to win the Ballon d'Or. The following year, van Basten amassed 129 points once again and won the 1989 Ballon d'Or, capping off another fruitful year for his club.
The Dutchman did go on to win a third Ballon d'Or in his career, in 1992, when he gathered 98 points to finish ahead of Hristo Stoichkov and Dennis Bergkamp.
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Deepungsu Pandit
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.
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