The Lionel Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo era of footballing dominance is over. Sure, the legendary pair are still going strong for both club and country, but 2022 will see their hold on the Ballon d’Or loosened for only the second time since 2007.
Luka Modric is the only player to break up their duopoly on football’s most illustrious individual award, winning the prize back in 2018. However, Robert Lewandowski would have surely been crowned winner in 2020 had it not been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year Karim Benzema is the runaway favourite to lift the Ballon d’Or, having scored an incredible 44 goals last season as Real Madrid won the Champions League and La Liga, while also scoring as France won the Nations League and qualified for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
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Liverpool star Mohamed Salah had been an early favourite for this year’s prize, only to lose form during the second half of the season and suffer multiple disappointments for club and country as Egypt lost in the Africa Cup of Nations final and failed to qualify for the World Cup, while the Reds narrowly missed out on Premier League and Champions League glory.
However, Liverpool legend Sadio Mane is perhaps this year’s likely runner-up having won the Africa Cup of Nations and qualified for the World Cup with Senegal at Salah and Egypt’s expense, along with clinching a domestic cup double beside his former teammate before missing out on an unprecedented quadruple at Anfield.
With the Reds also enduring a poor start to the 2022/23 season, Salah already faces an uphill battle to get himself into Ballon d’Or contention next year. For now, he’ll be hoping to improve on last year’s disappointing seventh place finish in the rankings, while Liverpool team-mates Trent Alexander-Arnold, Luis Diaz, Fabinho, Darwin Nunez and Virgil van Dijk, along with Mane, are all also included on the 30-man shortlist which was revealed back in August.
However, reigning holder Messi wasn’t included on the shortlist for the first time since 2005. Meanwhile, while Ronaldo was shortlisted, a disappointing season for Manchester United leaves him unlikely to rank too highly.
As a result, not only are we set to get a new winner of the prize, other than Messi or Ronaldo, for only the second time since 2007, it's highly likely that this year will also mark the first time that neither the Argentine seven-time winner or Portuguese five-time winner even finish in the Ballon d'Or top three since 2006.
Michael Owen is the only Liverpool player to ever win the award, claiming the Ballon d'Or in 2001, while Kevin Keegan is the only other player with Reds connections to have lifted the prize, having won it back to back in 1978 and 1979 after leaving Anfield in 1977.
But that wouldn’t be the case if this superhuman era of Messi/Ronaldo never occurred. If not for the legendary pairing, two other Liverpool stars would have got their hands on the Ballon d’Or.
The most obvious example is Virgil van Dijk. The best defender in the world, he had been a favourite to win the award in 2019 after playing a decisive role in the Reds winning that year’s Champions League and setting them on their way to winning a maiden Premier League title.
However, the Dutchman would finish second by the narrowest of margins to Messi, missing out by just seven points (686 points to 679). National team coaches and captains along with selected journalists all vote for their own top five, with the player they each rank first picking up six points and second to fifth earning four, three, two and one points respectively, highlighting just how close Van Dijk came to becoming the first defender to win the prize since Fabio Cannavaro in 2006.
Meanwhile, Fernando Torres would have also won the award back in 2008, if not for Messi and Ronaldo, after enjoying an astonishing first season with Liverpool and scoring the winning goal for Spain in the Euro 2008 final. Scoring 33 goals in his first season for the Reds as they reached the Champions League semi-finals and finished in the top four, he continued such form into the following year as Rafa Benitez’s side forged a genuine Premier League title challenge.
Unlike Van Dijk, however, the Spaniard was nowhere near beating Messi or Ronaldo to the prize. Competing against the pair at the top of their powers, he finished third in the rankings with 179 points in contrast to Messi's 281 and Ronaldo's 473.
Other Liverpool contenders from yesteryear include Steven Gerrard, who finished third in 2005 after captaining the Reds to Champions League glory only to finish behind Frank Lampard and Ronaldinho, and Kenny Dalglish who was runner-up to Michel Platini in 1983. Elsewhere, Jari Litmanen would finish third when still on the books of Ajax in 1995, six years before he made the move to Anfield.
Whether Mane can secure a top three finish of his own at Monday’s ceremony, only time will tell. Either way, the Messi/Ronaldo era of dominance is over and while Liverpool’s start to the season might have already ended Salah’s own hopes of lifting the Ballon d’Or in 2023, Jurgen Klopp will hope his side can swiftly recover to re-establish themselves as Premier League and Champions League contenders, with Liverpool’s Egyptian King and some of the Reds’ other star players looking to emerge as future winners in the years ahead.
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