The Ballon d’Or is not what people think

The Ballon d’Or is one of the oldest awards in football and is generally regarded as the most prestigious individual award for football players.

But what are its origins? Can any player win the Ballon d’Or? Who decides the winners?

Written by Jon Mackenzie, illustrated by Henry Cooke.

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#BallondOr #FIFA

[Nyte-Owl]

So the Ballon d'Or is what I thought it is.

[SmileySadFaceHD]

Messi and Ronaldo destroyed this award. They were so above the rest that it became a competition between who could win the most that year, and unfortunately that has become one of the main criteria for the award even after their dominance has ended. Jorginho being the third best player in the world for being part of two teams who won their tournaments even when he was not the most important player in neither of those teams has killed the idea of this award entirely. It has become another team trophy, I do not think your have to be in the Champions League winning team to be the best player in the world at the time, and it seems to have become a requisite when there is no international tournament going on.

[alexandrumircea]

This is exactly what I thought the Ballon d'Or was

[vb]

If they actually followed a set of rules to pick the winner….more people would’ve taken the award seriously

[MNA]

It’s just a popularity contest; the more your team wins, the more you are in the spotlight, the more people talk about it. Simple as that.

[Jonifico]

The real problem is WE pay too much attention to it. If we ignored it a bit more it would lose a lot of influence, but football fans end up making it what it is.

[hnaku]

TL;DR: It was pure European player of the year till 1995. Then it evolved into becoming European Leagues' player of the year.

[farzamkhizar]

After they refused to give Lewandowski's 2020 Ballon D'Or, and made a fake award for him the year after, they revealed their true colours. The award should mean nothing now.

[MrSuperFly]

My biggest issue with the Balloon d'Or is that people think it's a fair vote.

[dj]

You forgot to mention that France Football went back and revised the winners with South American inclusion and said that Pele would have won 7 times, Maradona in 1986 and 1990, Garrincha in 1962, Kempes in 1978 and Romario in 1994.

[gaston]

Alfredo Di Stefano was technically the first South American to win it. He was Argentinian that later nationalized as Spanish when he was playing in Real Madrid in the 50s.

[rmv]

The real problem is the lack of consistency. One year they give it to most mediatic guy who won the important tournament, next year to the most mediatic guy who had most stats in just a single or two categories like goals/assists (which by default leaves out any players that arent forwards) even if he wasnt in a team that won anything.

Many people opinions about who should have won it arent better to be honest (most of the time, worse) like giving it to the guy who scored the winning goal in a WC even if that guy was injuried most of that year and didnt play most of it, or wasnt even a starter in many games for his clubs (yes, I am talking about Iniesta) . It is a prize for the whole year performance.

[PSTV]

I just wish this was still an individual award, rather than given to the player with the most major trophies that year.

[kickassguy]

No award in a group sport can be accurately given to the best performer. As a mathematician, determining the best player in a season is very difficult if not impossible. We have to dive down to subjectivity rather than objectivity in this case.
There are many different and overlapping roles in football. Goals, saves and interceptions are not the only stats which determine the performance of a player. For a forward for eg. we need to consider goals, assists, key passes, through balls, dribbles, duels won etc. Apart from these quantitative stats, many non quantifiable stats exist as well. For eg. impact of player position on opposition play, vision, irregularities in opposition defence caused by player etc. Now even if we somehow quantify these stats, assigning them weightages/importance in order to get a composite score for comparing players becomes a subjective matter. Apart from this, many forwards also contribute in defence, we need to track that as well. A similar approach can be followed for defenders and midfielders.
In the end, it will boil down to subjectivity. Goals, assists, saves etc cannot be used as a yardstick to compare players in different and even similar roles to award them a trophy.
The easiest and effective approach therefore is a subjective one based on a large sample size in order to predict the best performing player. The Balon D Or does that and therefore is a good measure of a player’s performance in a given season.

[Aceofspades]

So, in summary, the Ballon D’or is exactly what people think?

[waterman]

I would like see a the ballon d’Or in a different form. First GK then defender, midfielder, attacker. So you get 4 players from each position then you give it to the best player

[GauchoArgento]

The first South American to win the Ballon d'Or was Di Stefano (Argentinean) in 1956. The second one was Sivori, Argentinean too, in 1961

[sagarranjan]

With Diego Milito and Wayne Rooney not even being in top 23 in 2010 (also Sneijder being 4th), I lost all interest in the award. I wonder why nobody talks about Muller in 2014 (domestic double and WC, influential in both). The goals and assist bias along with media and marketing influence killed the award completely.

[KrackersJack]

This is my first time catching an upload on its release. My life is complete.

[richardbud]

That was another high-quality and well-made video that I enjoyed but that is pretty much what I thought - and what most people think - the Ballon d'Or is.