The Argentine star Lionel Messi, the French player of Paris Saint-Germain, was absent from the list of 30 candidates for the 2022 Ballon d’Or, in a first of its kind in 16 years, while Real Madrid’s Spanish striker, Karim Benzema, is considered the most prominent candidate for the award.
Messi, last year’s award winner, has been a constant presence on the shortlist since 2006 and has been in the top three consistently since 2007, with the exception of 2018.
The former Barcelona star won the award seven times, a record ahead of his most prominent historical rival, Cristiano Ronaldo (5), who was named despite his disappointing last season after returning to his old-new team Manchester United, where he failed to reserve a seat in the Champions League.
Messi, 35, is absent from the list of candidates for the 2022 award, after he had a less than normal season with the Paris club, which he moved to last year from the Catalan club, winning the league title.
The amendment to the system of selecting names in the award also contributed to the exclusion of the Argentine flea, as the award no longer recognizes the best player throughout the calendar year.
Instead, it relies on season stats through the “individual performance” and “critical and impressive personality” of the candidates, according to the criteria.
Since his departure from the Catalan club in the summer of 2021, Messi has not been able to leave his mark as one of the best players throughout history, with the Parisian club constantly searching for the title of the mother continental competition, where he was eliminated from the final price by Real Madrid on the latter’s way to the title.
Messi scored 11 goals in various competitions with Saint-Germain, which was negatively reflected in the selection of “France Football” magazine, which organizes the Ballon d’Or ceremony on October 17.
Also, Messi’s colleague in Saint-Germain, Brazilian Neymar, who scored 13 goals in 28 matches, was absent from the preliminary list, while their colleague, French striker Kylian Mbappe, was present.
Real Madrid striker Benzema is one of the most prominent candidates to win this year’s award after leading the Royal Club to its fourteenth title in the Champions League, scoring 15 goals in the continental competition.
Benzema is expected to become the fifth French winner after Raymond Kopa (1958), Michel Platini (1983, 84 and 85), Jean-Pierre Papin (1991) and Zinedine Zidane (1998).
In the 2021-22 season, the French striker scored 44 goals in 46 games with the Spanish capital club, where he also won the Spanish League title and later at the beginning of the current season the European Super Cup by beating Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0.
Benzema raised his total goals with Real to 324 goals, after he scored one of the two goals in the victory over Frankfurt, to surpass the former “Merengue” star Raul Gonzalez in the club’s historical scorers list, as he ranks second behind Portuguese Ronaldo (450).
In this context, Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti said that Benzema “is on his way to winning the Ballon d’Or. Is there any doubt? For me, no.”
From Real Madrid, along with Benzema, Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, Brazilian Casemiro, Croatian Luka Modric, who won the award in 2018, Brazilian Vinicius Junior and former Chelsea player, German Antonio Rudiger, were chosen.
As for Liverpool, the runner-up in the Champions League (lost against Real 0-1), seven players were named from him: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Colombian Luis Dias, Brazilian Fabinho, Senegalese Sadio Mane (moved to Bayern Munich), Uruguayan Darwin Nunes, Egyptian Mohamed Salah and Dutchman Virgil van Dijk.
Among the women, 20 players were chosen among the list of nominees to win the award. England got three nominees: Lucy Bronze, Miley Bright and Beth Mead, top scorer in the last European Cup in which the England team was crowned.
Four French players were nominated, while the Spanish Alexia Botías, winner in 2021 and absent from the last edition of the European Cup due to an injury, was excluded, while the name of the Norwegian Ada Hegerberg, who crowned the first edition in history in 2018, was excluded.