The Ballon d’Or 2022, a prestigious prize awarded by the magazine French Football, it’s already running. The appointment will be at the Châtelet Theater in Paris, as usual. But it will be held two months earlier than usual, on October 17, because among other changes in the voting criteria, the calendar year is no longer counted, but only the season. Other novelties will be that only the representatives of the top 100 in the FIFA ranking will vote and individual performance is taken into account before collective performance.
Men’s Ballon d’Or. Karim Benzema, Real Madrid striker, seems the best positioned to take over from Lionel Messi in the award, winner of the last two editions (2019 and 2021; in 2020 it was not held due to the pandemic). Curiously, La Pulga -like Neymar- is not nominated for the award for the first time in more than a decade, since 2005. Benzema, for his part -who was also selected this Friday along with goalkeeper Courtois and midfielder De Bruyne (Manchester City) for the UEFA Player of the Year trophy-, he added 44 goals and 15 assists in 46 games, as well as being the capital for the League and Champions League titles, top scorer in both competitions. Madrid and Liverpool dominate the list of candidates, with four per beard. The 30 nominees are: Karim Benzema, Vinicius, Casemiro, Rüdiger, Modric and Thibaut Courtois (Madrid); Rafael Leão and Mike Maignan (Milan); Christopher Nkunku (Leipzig); Mohamed Salah, Luis Díaz, Fabinho, Darwin Núñez, Virgil Van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool); Joshua Kimmich and Sadio Mané (Bayern); Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, João Cancelo, Riyad Mahrez, De Bruyne and Erling Haaland (Manchester City); Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona); Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane (Tottenham); Sébastien Haller (Dortmund); Killian Mbappe (PSG); Dusan Vlahović (Fiorentina); and Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United).
Women’s Ballon d’Or. It is not known who will succeed the azulgrana Alexia Putellas, winner of the laurel in the previous year, after England won the European Championship and Lyon won the Champions League after beating Barcelona in the final. Precisely, the French team and the azulgrana are the ones that have the most representatives (5), even though two of them are summer signings at Barça. The 20 nominees are: Selma Bacha, Christiane Endler, Catarina Macario, Wendie Renard and Ada Hegerberg (Lyon); Fridolina Rolfö, Alexia Putellas, Asisat Oshoala, Lucy Bronze and Aitana Bonmatí (Barcelona); Kadidiatou Diani and Marie-Antoinette Katoto (PSG); Vivianne Miedema and Beth Mead (Arsenal); Sam Kerr and Millie Bright (Chelsea); Lena Oberdorf and Alexandra Popp (Wolfsburg); Alex Morgan (San Diego Wave); and Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit).
Yachine Trophy. The white goalkeeper Courtois asks for many tickets for the prize, savior of Madrid in the Champions League final against Liverpool. The last winner was Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG), thanks to his enormous performance in the last European Championship, which was won by Italy. The 10 nominees are: Yassine Bounou (Seville), Alisson Becker (Liverpool), Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid), Ederson Moraes (Manchester City), Mike Maignan (Milan), Edouard Mendy (Chelsea), Manuel Neuer (Bayern), Jan Oblak (Atlético), Kevin Trapp (Eintracht) and Hugo Lloris (Tottenham).
Cup Trophy. This is the award that is designated to the best footballer in the world under 21 years of age, a relatively new award because it has only been awarded in the last three editions. In 2018 was taken by Mbappé with PSG, in 2019 Matthijs de Ligt did it with Ajax/Juve, now at Bayern; and Pedri won it last year with Barça. Now, his partner Gavi, the youngest of all the candidates because he has just turned 18, could relieve him. The other nine candidates are: Karim Adeyemi and Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Eduardo Camavinga (Real Madrid), Ryan Gravenberch and Jamal Musiala (Bayern), Nuno Mendes (PSG), Josko Gvardiol (Leipzig), Bukayo Saka (Arsenal) and Florian Wirtz (Leverkusen).
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