Cristiano Ronaldo finished in 20th place in the Ballon d’Or votingleading a group of stars that failed to overtake the 2022 winner, Karim Benzema.
The Portuguese, Benzema’s former teammate at Real Madrid, was named after completing a good season with Manchester United but failed to come close to his sixth statuette.
Instead, CR7 has dropped to its lowest position since it was last 20th in 2005on par with Jamie Carragher, who had been UEFA Champions League champion with Liverpool that season.
his great rival, Lionel Messi didn’t even get a nomination after his first decent year at Paris Saint-Germain.
Some of the biggest names of the future have come closest to the awkward Benzema, with Kylian Mbappé sixth and Erling Haaland tenth. However, neither of them made it to the semi-finals, where the campaign of Robert Lewandowski, world leader with 57 goals between his club and the national team, only earned him fourth place.
In front of the Pole Kevin De Bruyne third and Sadio Mané second. With Ronaldo twentieth and Messi absent, the highest-scoring former Ballon d’Or winner was Luka Modric, from 2018, one of Benzema’s current teammates at Real Madrid.
Modric was ninth, the lowest of Merengue’s four players in the top 10, as Vinicius Júnior finished eighth and Trophy winner Yashin Thibaut Courtois finished seventh.
Video | Figo: “Madrid was better and deserved to win the Clásico”
