The award may witness the crowning of a player for the first time in his career, after years of dominance by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi from 2008 to 2021, punctuated by the crowning of Croatian Luka Modric in 2018.
1st candidate
There is no talk in the media or mass platforms about the eligibility of a player like Karim Benzema, the Real Madrid striker, after winning the Champions League last season with an exceptional performance.
Benzema won the Spanish League title last season with Real Madrid, and won the title of top scorer after visiting the opponents’ net 27 times, and in the Champions League scored 15 goals, becoming the star of his first team in a season that history will remember.
Lionel Messi, crowned with the Ballon d’Or in 2021, suffered this year from not adapting to his new team, Paris Saint-Germain, to decline in his level and fail to support his team in the Champions League.
Real Madrid fans around the world are preparing to celebrate their player tonight by winning the Golden Ball for the first time in his career, and not winning the award will be a shock that will resonate with the media and social media platforms.
arabic dream
Egyptian Mohamed Salah, the English star of Liverpool, carried Arab dreams at the beginning of the 2021-2022 season, and everyone started talking about his right to win the Golden Ball for the first time in his career.
Salah led Liverpool to compete for all local and European championships during the 2021-2022 season until the last moment of the season, and scored decisive and other great goals, such as his two goals against Manchester City and Watford in the Premier League.
Salah won the English Premier League top scorer for the third time in his history with 23 goals shared by South Korean player Heung-min Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur, and the Egyptian pharaoh was crowned the best player in England for the second time in his history.
Salah’s season would have been perfect had it not been for the last minutes in the English Premier League and the Champions League. Liverpool competed for 4 titles: the Champions League, the English Premier League, the FA Cup and the League Cup, but they won only two cups.
Liverpool lost the Champions League final with a clean goal against Real Madrid, and the Premier League lost in the last round to Manchester City, after it was on the verge of being crowned, before City reversed its two-goal deficit to win a three-way win over Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium.
Salah’s loss to Benzema in the Champions League final, despite the Egyptian’s excellent performance and the French’s failure to score, allowed some to get the Liverpool winger out of the nominations in favor of the Spanish striker.
Salah’s failure to lead his country to victory over Senegal twice, in the final of the African Nations Cup and the play-off stage of the World Cup qualifiers, affected his loss of the title of best player in Africa to his former teammate in Liverpool, Sadio Mane, who moved to Bayern Munich.
Candidate List
The French magazine “France Football” revealed a list of 30 players, one of whom will win the Ballon d’Or as the best player in the world this year, and they are as follows:
- Belgian Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid).
- Egyptian Mohamed Salah (Liverpool).
- England’s Alexander Arlund (Liverpool).
- Brazilian Vinicius Junior (Real Madrid).
- Portuguese Bernardo Silva (Manchester City).
- Polish Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona).
- Algerian Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City).
- Brazilian Casemiro (Manchester United).
- South Korea’s Heung-Min Son (Tottenham Hotspur).
- French Karim Benzema (Real Madrid).
- England’s Harry Kane (Tottenham).
- England’s Phil Foden (Manchester City).
- Senegalese Sadio Mane (Bayern Munich).
- Croatian Luka Modric (Real Madrid).
- Belgian Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City).
- Norwegian Erling Haaland (Manchester City).
- French Kylian Mbappe (Paris Saint-Germain).
France Football will announce the list of the best in the world in order from 30 to player No. 4 gradually before the start of the ceremony, and will postpone the announcement of the first trio during the ceremony, which will also witness the announcement of the best football player in the world.
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