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Ballon d’Or 2022 LIVE UPDATES: Meet the winners of the 2022 gala
The Ballon d’Or, the Ballon d’Or Feminin, the Kopa Trophy and the Yashin Trophy will be awarded on October 17 in Paris in a lavish ceremony at Theatre du Chatelet. The ceremony starts at 19:30 UK time.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have won 12 of the last 13 Ballon d’Ors – with Real Madrid’s Luka Modric winning as the sole outlier in 2018 – but Messi was not even nominated for the 2022 award. Karim Benzema is the hot favourite to win the men’s award while Alexia Putellas of Barcelona – despite missing out on Euro 2022 due to injury – is expected to win the women’s award, with competition from England and Arsenal’s Beth Mead amongst others.
Awards for the best goalkeeper – the Yashin Trophy – and the best young player in the world – the Kopa Trophy – will also be awarded at the Ballon d’Or ceremony.
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FOLLOW ALL THE LATEST UPDATES AS THEY HAPPEN, HERE
Courtois was Real Madrid’s hero in the Champions League final against Liverpool, as well as making countless important saves en route to winning LaLiga Santander last season. His exploits have justifiably earned him the award for the best goalkeeper, the Yashin Trophy. Barcelona forward Alexia Putellas has claimed the women’s Ballon d’Or once again. The Spanish superstar won the trophy last year and she has successfully defended her crown. It’s ninth place for 2018 winner Luka Modric, and eighth place for Vinicius after scoring the winning goal in the Champions League final. Erling Haaland makes it into the Top 10, although if he carries on how he has started this campaign, he will be a lot higher up in the 2023 gala. Barcelona’s teenage sensation Gavi has won the Kopa trophy, handed to the best youngster in the game of the last season. He’s made huge strides with club and country. Tottenham’s Heung-min Son just misses out on the Top 10. The South Korean was immense for Antonio Conte’s side, and finished as the Premier League’s joint top scorer with Mo Salah.Courtois wins Yashin Trophy
Alexia Putellas wins women’s Ballon d’Or
Madrid duo take eight and ninth
Haaland tenth
Gavi wins Kopa trophy
Son comes 11th
19:05 – 25-11
25 minutes until we’re underway so here’s a quick recap of the rankings so far.
=25: Joao Cancelo (Manchester City). Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich). Mike Maignan (AC Milan). Antonio Rudiger (Chelsea / Real Madrid). Darwin Nunez (Benfica – moved to Liverpool). Christopher Nkunku (RB Leipzig)
=22: Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool). Phil Foden (Manchester City). Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)
21: Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur)
20: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus / Manchester United)
=17: Luis Diaz (Porto / Liverpool). Dusan Vlahovic (Fiorentina / Juventus). Casemiro (Real Madrid – moved to Manchester United)
16: Virgil Van Dijk (Liverpool)
=14: Rafael Leao (AC Milan). Fabinho (Liverpool)
13: Sebastien Haller (Ajax / Dortmund)
12: Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City)
11: Son Heung-Min (Tottenham Hotspur)
18:55 – THE STAGE IS SET
18:40 – MANE ON THE RED CARPET
18:30 – THE DE BRUYNES ARRIVE
18:20 – THE STARS ARRIVE
Haller in the house.
18:05 – SPURS CELEBRATE DUO
17:55 – SON MISSES TOP TEN SPOT
Tottenham’s Son Heung-Min narrowly misses out on a spot in the top ten, but 11th isn’t too shabby for 2020’s Puskas award winner.
17:40 – MAHREZ 12TH
Manchester City’s top goalscorer last season Riyad Mahrez is 12th! His fourth time nominated.
17:35 – HALLER 13TH
Ajax’s Sebastian Haller squeezes into the top 15.
17:30 – LEAO AND FABINHO TIE FOR 14TH
Getting towards the business end of the list now.
Liverpool’s Fabinho is in at 14th alongside AC Milan’s Rafael Leao.
17:20 – THE TOP PRIZE
The most famous individual gong in sports.
17:10 – VAN DIJK UP NEXT
Another Liverpool player in early as Virgil Van Dijk grabs 16th spot. A tough season so far for the Dutchman but fresh off a clean sheet against Manchester City.
17:05 – ANOTHER TIE FOR 17TH…
Liverpool’s Luis Diaz, Juve’s Dusan Vlahovic and Manchester United’s Casemiro come in at 17th.
Any surprises so far? I think Kane has been hard done by…
16:55 – RONALDO IN AT 20
Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time winner of the top gong, is in at 20.
He’s had an underwhelming year by his standards but still a pretty good year by anyone else’s standards. An incredible 18th time he’s made the shortlist.
16:40 – KANE 21ST
No ties here, Tottenham’s Harry Kane holds 21st spot all on his own. His fourth nomination for the award.
And with that ends England’s involvement in the list.
16:35 – TRENT, SILVA AND FODEN TIE
Next up, A Premier League trio tie for 22nd place.
Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold and Manchester City’s Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva. A shame that voting closed before Foden’s hat-trick against Manchester United a fortnight ago.
16:25 – IN 25TH PLACE…
Here we go…Balon d’Or have started tweeting the official rankings in the build-up to this evening’s ceremony.
And in 25th place…it’s a tie!
We’ve got Manchester City’s Joao Cancelo, Bayern’ Munich’s Joshua Kimmich, AC Milan goalie Mike Maignan, Real Madrid man Antonio Rudiger, Liverpool’s pass-shy striker Darwin Nunez and RB Leipzig’s gossip column regular Christopher Nkunku.
16:15: THE FINAL FIVE
Before the official list is revealed, it’s time for our top five predictions.
Salah, Mbappe, Mead, Kerr, see where these superstars fall and the highlights of some incredible individual seasons. All here.
16:00: BENZEMA AND COURTOIS ARRIVE IN PARIS
The man everyone is talking about has arrived in Paris.
Real Madrid’s Twitter account posted a couple of pictures showing Ballon d’Or favourite Karim Benzema and Yashin Trophy hopeful Thibaut Courtois touching down in the French capital.
Will they both have silverware to bring home tonight?
15:45: HAALAND, MODRIC, MIEDEMA AND RENARD IN OUR TOP 10S
There are some big hitters included in the penultimate countdowns in our series, including Erling Haaland, 2018 winner Luka Modric, Vivianne Miedema and Wendie Renard.
See where we placed this stunning array of footballing talent here.
15:30: MAHREZ, RONALDO, SON AND MORGAN ALL RANKED
We continued our countdown in the Ballon d’Or and Ballon d’Or Feminin lists, ranking the men’s players in places 15-11 and the women from 12-9.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Riyad Mahrez, Heung-Min Son and Alex Morgan all feature. Where were they ranked? Find out here.
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Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung-Min celebrates scoring his side’s third goal during the UEFA Champions League group D match between Tottenham Hotspur and Eintracht Frankfurt at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on October 12, 2022 in London, United Kingdom.
Image credit: Getty Images
15:00: ALEXANDER-ARNOLD AND DIAZ MAKE OUR TOP 25
Check out another piece from our Ballon d’Or prediction series, which includes Liverpool duo Trent Alexander-Arnold and Luis Diaz in our top 15.
Meanwhile two of England’s Lioness heroines, Lucy Bronze and Millie Bright feature in our Ballon d’Or Féminin countdown from 16-13.
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Luis Díaz
Image credit: Getty Images
14:30: BARCELONA’S STARS HEAD FOR PARIS
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The Barcelona quartet of Alexia Putellas, Lucy Bronze and Fridolina Rolfo, Asisat Oshoala are all heading off to the French capital for tonight’s ceremony.
Putellas is being widely tipped to retain her Ballon d’Or Féminin crown, but how high will Bronze finish?
She won The Best FIFA Women’s Player award in 2020, but the Ballon d’Or has eluded her so far.
14:00: MULLER LEADS CALLS FOR LEWANDOWSKI
Thomas Muller said he would pick Robert Lewandowski over Karim Benzema for this year’s Ballon d’or.
Muller and Lewandowski were Bayern Munich team-mates for eight seasons before the Poland striker left for Barcelona last summer.
“I have to go for Lewandowski,” Muller said.
Responding as to why two top European goalscorers are compared, he added: “But I know what you mean. Benzema had a very good season and is a very good player.”
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Thomas Müller umarmt Robert Lewandowski
Image credit: Getty Images
13:30: GUNNERS PRESENCE IN PARIS
Molly Hudson from The Times reports via Sky Sports that Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Bukayo Saka and technical director Edu will be present at tonight’s ceremony.
Saka has been nominated for the Kopa Trophy, which is awarded to the best performing player under the age of 21.
Meanwhile, Mead and Miedema have both been included in Ballon d’Or Féminin nominations.
The quartet will fly to the French capital on a private jet.
13:00: OUR MEN’S AND WOMEN’S BALLON D’OR PREDICTIONS
We’ve asked for your Ballon d’Or predictions, and our writers have given us their respective top 30 and 20 lists in the men’s and women’s awards respectively.
Check out our 30-23 predictions in the men’s category and 20-17 in the women’s.
How many of these will prove to be correct?
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The the Ballon d’Or award
Image credit: Getty Images
12:30: BALLON D’OR 2013 – WHEN FRANCK RIBERY FELT ‘ROBBED’
We recount one of the most controversial Ballon d’Ors in recent years, with Franck Ribery “robbed” of the award in 2013.
The Frenchman finished third, despite helping Bayern Munich to an historic Bundesliga, Champions League and DFB-Pokal treble.
The deadline for the vote in 2013 was originally November 15, but it was extended for the first time in the competition’s history by two weeks due to a lack of eligible voters. UEFA president Michel Platini joked that FIFA did it to “please” Ronaldo.
In this period, Ronaldo scored a spectacular hat-trick which secured qualification for Portugal to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
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Franck Ribéry celebra un gol que marcó al Villarreal con la camiseta del Bayern
Image credit: Getty Images
12:00: WHO DO YOU THINK WILL WIN THE BALLON D’OR?
Make sure you get involved with the conversation on social media and have your say on who will win tonight’s awards.
You can give us your predictions for the Ballon d’Or, Ballon d’Or Feminin, Kopa Trophy and the Yashin Trophy.
11:30: BACKGROUND ON THE BALLON D’OR
Want to know how the Ballon d’Or works for this year? It can be a tad confusing to the understand the voting process, but we’ve tried our best to simplify it all here.
There have been some slight changes this year, with the award given to the best player from the previous season.
This will be the criteria going forward, after it was traditionally presented to the best player over a 12-month period from January to December.
11:00: SOME HUGELY-IMPRESSIVE BENZEMA STATS
It feels a bit like a Karim Benzema blog at the moment, but it is hard to ignore the Frenchman’s hugely-impressive stats.
We’ve included a sample of these from planetfootball.com.
- Benzema registered 44 goals and 15 assists in 46 appearances in all competitions for Madrid in 2021-22 and averaged a direct goal contribution every 66.42 minutes.
- The striker got either a goal or assist in 32 of the 46 club games he appeared in during 2021-22.
- He registered more direct goal contributions than Robert Lewandowski (57), Mohamed Salah (47), Erling Haaland (37) and Ciro Immobile (36) in 2021-22.
- The France international finished as the top scorer in La Liga, nine ahead of second-placed Iago Aspas. He was also second on the assists chart after Ousmane Dembele.
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Karim Benzema (R) of Real Madrid greets his head coach Carlo Ancelotti while leaving the pitch during the La Liga Santander match between Real Madrid and Barcelona at Stadio Santiago Bernabeu on October 16, 2022 in Madrid, Spain.
Image credit: Getty Images
10:00: PODIUM STATS AHEAD OF TONIGHT
Some interesting stats ahead of tonight’s ceremony, showing the players with the highest number of podium finishes.
Unsurprisingly, Lionel Messi leads the way and is closely followed by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Meanwhile, some other iconic legends from yesteryear are also included.
09:30: BALLON D’OR WINNER ‘LEAKED’ BY SPANISH MEDIA
The Ballon d’Or winner has reportedly been leaked by the Spanish media, with MARCA claiming that Karim Benzema will pick up his first Golden Ball trophy tonight.
Aside from the Ballon d’Or, the Yashin Trophy and Kopa Trophy – awarded for the best performing goalkeeper and best performing player under 21 respectively, will also be announced.
Benzema’s Real Madrid team-mate Thibaut Courtois is tipped to win the Yashin Trophy, while Barcelona’s Gavi is expected to win the Kopa award.
It will be interesting to see if these ‘leaks’ prove to be correct!
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Benzema y Fede Valverde
Image credit: Getty Images
09:00: ‘A LITTLE BIT ALSO OURS’ – ANCELOTTI WANTS BENZEMA BALLON D’OR WIN
Carlo Ancelotti has added to the calls for Karim Benzema to win this year’s Ballon d’Or, after scoring in Sunday’s 3-1 Clasico won over Barcelona.
He said: “As I said yesterday, I saw him much better during training. Clearly his condition is going to improve every day.
“He played a good game, he scored a goal, he was important in the game. Tomorrow hopefully he can win the Ballon d’Or and we are going to congratulate him because a little bit of that Ballon is also ours.”
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‘Benzema’s Ballon d’Or would be a bit ours too’ – Ancelotti after Real win over Barca
08:30: RONALDO SET FOR FIRST AWARDS APPEARANCE IN FIVE YEARS
Cristiano Ronaldo will attend tonight’s ceremony in Paris, in what is set to be his first appearance at the gala for five years.
The Mirror reports that Ronaldo was last present in 2017 when he won his fifth and most recent Ballon d’Or.
The 37-year-old has incredibly been on every 30-man Ballon d’Or shortlist since being first nominated in 2005.
There is little hope that Ronaldo win a sixth Golden Ball tonight, after failing to hit his previous stratospheric heights in an underperforming Manchester United side.
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Cristiano Ronaldo of Manchester United reacts
Image credit: Getty Images
08:00: THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!
Happy Ballon d’Or day! Tonight we will find out the two winners of the respective men’s and women’s awards in what is arguably the most prestigious football ceremony of the year.
Karim Benzema is hotly tipped to claim the men’s award following a stellar season with Real Madrid, while Sadio Mane, Robert Lewandowski, Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne are also among the top contenders.
The Ballon d’Or Feminin looks just as competitive, with Barcelona’s Alexia Putellas the favourite to retain her prize, but Lioness heroine Beth Mead and Chelsea goal machine Sam Kerr may pip the Spaniard to top spot.
It’s going to be fascinating to see what unfolds, and we will keep you posted with everything that goes on here.
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Ballon d’Or
Image credit: Getty Images
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Benzema wins the Ballon d’Or!
Karim Benzema has won the Ballon d’Or. The Frenchman played a key role in the 21/22 season, helping Real Madrid win LaLiga Santander, the Supercopa de Espana and the Champions League with his 44 goals and 15 assists.