Ballon d’Or 2019 Nominees
The most contentious list in world football is the Ballon d’Or list of top soccer players for the calendar year. The Ballon d’Or 2019 nominees list was released to much fanfare as well as condemnation due to some players that didn’t make the cut. The list of 30 candidates for the best player in men’s football is headlined by FC Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, his eternal rival Cristiano Ronaldo, and Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk. For women’s football, USA national team’s Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan lead the list of top 20 women for their showing in the FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament earlier this year.
Ballon d’Or Winners List
For the longest time, the Ballon d’Or winners list has been dominated by this generation’s best players (and arguably the best of all time depending on who you ask) Ronaldo and Messi. The two forwards both share ten Ballon d’Or trophies amongst each other (five apiece). It took Luka Modric’s heroics in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia to break the monopoly of the two stars and win the award. He led Croatia to the finals of the World Cup, as well as being an instrumental figure in the Real Madrid side that won the UEFA Champions League for the third consecutive time.
The Ballon D’Or Rankings
The shortlist of the players will be reduced until the final three players that will be handed the trophy in the 64th edition of the award ceremony in December. The Ballon d’Or voting procedure is conducted by 176 soccer journalists from around the globe. Each journalist nominates five players and there’s a scoring criterion for players that are nominated.
| Nomination | Points |
| 1st nomination | 6 points |
| 2nd nomination | 4 points |
| 3rd nomination | 3 points |
| 4th nomination | 2 points |
| 5th nomination | 1 point |
The players will be ranked according to the points they accumulated and the winner will be announced in a glitzy ceremony later this year. Here’s a shortlist of the nominees for the 2019 Ballon d’Or award:
- Virgil van Dijk
- Sadio Mane
- Lionel Messi
- Cristiano Ronaldo
- Mohamed Salah
- Alisson Becker
- Trent Alexander-Arnold
- Roberto Firmino
- Raheem Sterling
- Kevin De Bruyne
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
- Sergio Aguero
- Georginio Wijnaldum
- Eden Hazard
- Antoine Griezmann
- Riyad Mahrez
- Dusan Tadic
- Hugo Lloris
- Joao Felix
- Matthijs de Ligt
- Karim Benzema
- Marc-Andre Ter Stegen
- Donny van de Beek
- Robert Lewandowski
- Frenkie De Jong
- Bernardo Silva
- Marquinhos
- Kalidou Koulibaly
- Kylian Mbappe
- Heung-Min Son
