The Ballon d’Or 2018 award promises to be a titanic battle this year. Both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are bidding to become the first player to win the award on six occasions but there are other contenders with Mo Salah and Neymar both bidding to break the stranglehold that Messi and Ronaldo have on the award. In this article, we take a look at the chances of Messi or Neymar winning the Ballon d’Or again this year.
Messi Bids to Make History
Lionel Messi has two major dreams this year and both would be something his great rival Cristiano Ronaldo won’t have. He would love to finally get a World Cup winners medal in what may well be his last tournament as a player. Also, on his list is winning the Ballon d’Or and becoming the first player to win the prestigious award on six occasions.
The Argentinian first won the Ballon d’Or award in 2009 and he went on to win it for four years in a row. He was runner-up to Cristiano Ronaldo for the next two years but won a fifth Ballon d’Or in 2015. Since then he has finished runner-up to Ronaldo for the past two awards and the prolific hat-trick scorer would hate to complete three successive second-place finishes.
Something else Ronaldo doesn’t have is a La Liga winners medal for the 2017/18 season, but Messi does. He led Barcelona to the title and scored 34 goals in 36 league games and in all competitions, he hit 45 goals in 54 Barcelona matches. That was a scoring rate just below that of Ronaldo. He has also had success with Argentina and recently scored another hat-trick for his country. Success at the World Cup would surely raise his hopes of a sixth award and he’s currently the third favourite to win at 3/1 with 888sport.
Brazilian Star Chases Success
Neymar may not have a Ballon d’Or award to his name but he can at least say he’s been transferred for more than Ronaldo and Messi. The 26-year-old PSG striker cost the French club €222 million but there are still doubts over whether he’ll be playing for them next season with a move to Real Madrid being touted in the media.
The Brazilian may not have had a great time off the pitch in Paris but his performances on the pitch have been highly impressive. He scored 19 goals and 13 to help his new team to the Ligue 1 title – not a bad return considering he was out injured towards the end of the season. More goals came in the Champions League with six strikes in as many group games. He scored in each of the first five games but failed to net in the final match against Bayern Munich thus missing out on equalling the record Cristiano Ronaldo set in scoring in all six group games.
In terms of international football, Neymar is a prolific scorer for Brazil. He returned from injury to score in two consecutive World Cup warm-up games to take his tally to 55 goals in 85 internationals. One more goal will take him into outright third highest scorer for Brazil and he’s only 22 adrift of Pele’s record.
Russian Performances Could be the Key
Neymar scored four goals in the 2014 World Cup and if he can have a great 2018 tournament, that’s going to do his chances of winning the Ballon d’Or no harm at all. He’s currently 15/1 with Unibet to win the award but those odds could tumble if he does well in Russia.
The same applies to Lionel Messi, who probably has a bit of catching up to do with Ronaldo and Salah. If he can have a stunning World Cup, then the voting is going to get even more interesting.