Cristiano Ronaldo was awarded the Italian league’s player of the year last night – the same night when Lionel Messi was handed his sixth Ballon d’Or.
Ronaldo missed the Ballon d’Or ceremony
CR7 chose to receive his Serie A player of the year award in Milan, instead of attending the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris, where he remained the third choice after Messi and Virgil Van Dijk.
The Portuguese international won the individual prize after winning the Serie A title in his debut season with Juventus. He finished the season with 28 goals across all competitions. Ronaldo could not win the Serie A Golden boot, however. He scored 21 goals in 31 matches, remaining fourth in the goalscoring charts, while veteran striker Fabio Quagliarella collected that award with 26 goals to his tally.
Messi is now the record Ballon d’Or holder
After receiving his Ballon d’Or trophy last night, Lionel Messi is now the first person ever to win six Ballon d’Or awards, surpassing Ronaldo who has five. Last years’ winner Luka Modric was the person to hand the award the Messi.
And actually, the leaked award winners from a couple of days go turned out to be true, even though Cristiano did eventually move to the top 3 spot. Liverpool defender Van Dijk, however, was agonizingly close to snatching the victory. He remained only 7 points away from the first place.
During the last season, Messi scored 51 goals in 50 matches for Barcelona across all competitions. The 32-year old Argentinian won his 10th La Liga title with “Blaugranas”. In September, he also received the Best FIFA Men’s Player award.
Here’s the complete top 8 for this year:
1. Lionel Messi – 686 pts.
2. Virgil Van Dijk – 679 pts.
3. Cristiano Ronaldo – 476 pts.
4. Sadio Mane – 347 pts.
5. Mohamed Salah – 178 pts.
6. Kylian Mbappe – 89 pts.
7. Alisson – 67 pts.
8. Robert Lewandowski – 44 pts.
