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#3 Zinedine Zidane - 1998
Zinedine Zidane led from the front as France were crowned World Champions in 1998. A man for the big occasion, Zizou scored a brace in the World Cup final in 1998 against Brazil. He had an excellent season all round and dominated the midfield realms with his deft touches and unmatched vision on the football field.
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Zidane also won the Serie A title with Juventus that season. He was also pivotal to Juventus' journey to the UEFA Champions League final and though they lost in the final, Zidane was lauded for his performance.
It's hard to find a footballer who was as aware of things happening around him as Zidane was. He was also extremely talented in a technical sense. He could slalom past defenders and thread exquisite through balls to his forwards and he had the ability to make everything look easy.
#2 Cristiano Ronaldo - 2016
Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best footballers of all time and in an illustrious career that has spanned almost two decades, he enjoyed arguably his best year in 2016. Ronaldo and Messi both continued to be criticized for not being able to win major trophies with their national side but in 2016, the Portuguese put that to rest.
He won the Euros with Portugal and that was just the icing on the cake. It was also the year in which Real Madrid won the first of their three consecutive UEFA Champions League titles and Ronaldo was central to their success.
He scored 16 goals in 12 Champions League games in addition to scoring 35 goals and racking up 11 assists in 36 La Liga matches that season. He was the clear-cut favourite to win all major individual honours that year and beat Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann to his fourth Ballon d'Or.
#1 Lionel Messi - 2012
Lionel Messi of 2012 was a beast. After scoring an absolutely incredible 73 goals for Barcelona in the 2011-12 season, the Argentine bagged a total of 91 goals for both club and country in 2012 which is the most by any player in a calendar year in the history of the game.
Barcelona did not win the league or the Champions League that season but numbers like that cannot be overlooked. Lionel Messi was just unstoppable, wriggling his way into the box with the ball glued to his foot and beating goalkeepers with all kinds of finishing techniques.
At times, it almost looked like he was having too much fun at the expense of others. 73 goals and 29 assists in a single season for a club is just a phenomenal achievement and if you have to win the Ballon d'Or without major trophies, you will need to do something like that on a personal level.
