Real Madrid's French forward Karim Benzema receives the Ballon d'Or award on Monday. Picture: FRANCK FIFE / AFP.
When Karim Benzema won France Football’s Ballon D’Or on Monday, he became only the second male player to win it since 2008 whose name is not Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.
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Like Croatia’s Luka Modric when he won it in 2018, there can be little doubt the Frenchman deserves the award, after a wonderful year with Real Madrid, where he netted 44 goals in 46 matches in the 2021/22 season, as they won La Liga and the Uefa Champions League.
Africa is entitled to feel sympathy for Sadio Mane, who won the Africa Nations Cup with Senegal, while also having an excellent season with Liverpool, winning the FA Cup and Carabao Cup. But for an award judged for a performance over a season, Benzema does merit the gong, just ahead of the Bayern Munich star.
At 34, it remains to be seen just how many more Ballons D’Or, if any, Benezema can win, though if he stars for France at the Fifa World Cup (no doubt he will be determined to, after not being picked in their 2018 triumph), and has another stellar season with Real Madrid, he won’t be far away in 2023.
It is probably safe to say, meanwhile, that the Ronaldo and Messi era is officially over, at least in terms of the Ballon D’Or. One could argue Messi was even lucky to win it ahead of Robert Lewandowski in 2021, and at Paris St Germain his career doesn’t really seem to have moved forwards in a league far below the standard of Spain’s.
Messi will have one last Fifa World Cup in which to strut his stuff in Qatar next month, and if Argentina can lift a first title since 1986, and the 35 year-old shows that there is still life yet in those brilliant legs, perhaps he will jump into the reckoning.
Right now, however, that doesn’t seem likely, while it seems even less likely for a 37 year-old Ronaldo, who has battled to make the starting line-up this season at Manchester United, though there is little doubt he will be one of the main men for Portugal at Qatar 2022.
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