First of all I think it was a very tough Ballon D’or to make a call on. Some years it seems pretty obvious who deserves it and who will win. Other years there’s 2 (or maybe 3) players that you can point out and say “it’s either going to be him or him” (this year it was Messi and Haaland). But in 2018, I just don’t think that was the case at all. There weren’t 2 or 3 players that stood out from the rest.
Obviously 2018 being a World Cup year complicated things. A lot of the Ballon D’or candidates who performed fantastically at club level didn’t have a particularly impressive World Cup. I’m going to focus on Messi, Ronaldo, Greizmann and Modric, however I’m sure many other people would add Mbappe and Salah to the mix of main candidates.
Messi, as he so often does, finished the year with the most goals and assists in European club football winning La Liga and Copa del Rey (1 goal and 2 assists in the final). However his World Cup was underwhelming, only scoring one goal, missing a penalty against Iceland and being eliminated in the Last 16 by France.
Ronaldo scored an incredible 15 UCL goals in the 2017/18 season winning the UCL and UCL forward of the season. His goal scoring stats were impressive in every club competition that year. However, like Haaland this season, many people argued that his game was too goal-scoring orientated. He didn’t contribute as much to playmaking and creating goals as he had in the past. Ronaldo had a fantastic start to the 2018 World Cup scoring a hattrick against Spain, but after that match, he missed a penalty against Iran and was only able to score 1 goal in his 3 other matches.
Greizmann won the Europa League in the 2017/18 season scoring 2 goals in the final and winning player of the tournament. He had an incredible World Cup campaign scoring 4 goals and getting 2 assists. He also had a good La Liga campaign, Atletico finished second only to Barcelona, however his league stats that season were still completely dwarfed by Messi’s phenomal numbers. To be honest Barcelona and Messi completely ran the show in Spanish football in 2018.
Modric. Obviously between Messi, Ronaldo, Greizmann I don’t think it’s unreasonable to compare their stats in terms of goals and assists. They are all forward players who are expected to assist and score as many goals as possible. Modric obviously played deeper, as a central midfielder. It’s not realistic to compare his stats to that of the other 3.
Alongside Ronaldo, Modric won the Champions League with Real Madrid and won UCL Midfielder of the season that year. In the World Cup he scored twice and got an assist. With Croatia reaching the World Cup final he was awarded player of the tournament. Admittedly Croatia didn’t have the toughest run of matches to get there, France had it much harder. However Croatia still thrashed Argentina (Modric goal), knocked-out the tournament holders Russia (Modric assist) and beat England in the semis. Not bad going at all.
Overall, I think this was a really difficult Ballon D’or to judge. And with different players being successful in different competitions, a lot of it comes down to people’s opinions on the importance of each tournament. Most people would classify the World Cup being the most important tournament, followed by the Champions League, but then how do you rank La Liga against the Europa League for example. Is Greizmann’s Europa League success more valuable than Messi’s La Liga and Copa del Rey success? Modric may have not won the World Cup, but to come second place with Croatia seems atleast equally as impressive as France winning the tournament itself, if not more impressive.
Personally I really dont think Modric winning the Ballon D’or was that bad, given his success in the UCL and amazing run in the World Cup. To be honest though, I think any of those 4 (Messi, Ronaldo, Greizmann and Modric) could have won the Ballon D’or and I wouldn’t have objected to it, it was a really tough vote.
Who do you think deserved the 2018 Ballon D’or?
firstly, for me personally, the golden ball is no longer such a prestigious award as before, for me personally in 2019 van Dijk had to break this chain of forwards and midfielders who took the golden ball, and stand next to Cannavaro, I’m not saying that Cristiano and Messi are not deserved it, but Van Dijk lacked a measly seven points, and if the voters had been newer countries, Van Dijk would have won. I mean, Messi and Ronaldo are two of the most famous people in the world, and those voting from Cameroon or Guinea probably don’t even know who Van Dijk is. What else did Virgil have to do to get the golden ball? Okay… I’ve kind of gone off topic, Modric, I definitely don’t think that anyone was seriously rooting for Croatia (well, except for the Croatians, sorry) And Modric brought his team to the final, worthily losing to France, who demolished everyone in their path. He also took home the Champions League, so I think he deserved it.