Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, two of the world’s best football players, place way low in the Ballon d’Or rankings, with Messi not even qualifying and Ronaldo finishing 20th. The Ballon d’Or is a award ceremony celebrating and awarding the best football players in the world of football. The ceremony includes an award for the best male player of the year and the best female player of the year. They also award the best youngster ( Under 21) of the year. They award the best goal keeper and many more awards to celebrate the worlds best in the football world. Messi and Ronaldo’s previous rankings show they were some of the best players of their time with both finishing top two for about 12 years. They started their reign of dominance back in 2008 where Ronaldo finished 1st, after that Messi one then so on. All together they have a combined 12 with Messi winning 7 and Ronaldo winning 5. Now in October 17 the 2022 Ballon d’Or best mens player winner is Real Madrid’s 34 year old forward Karim Benzama. Karim has been in a team with Ronaldo and has watched him win the Ballon d’Or best mens player before.

Here are the results from the last 14 years (Taken from an ESPN article by Chris Wright on Oct 18).

2008: Ronaldo wins the ballon d’Or with Messi placing 2nd

2009: Messi wins the Ballon d’Or with Ronaldo finishing 2nd 

2010: Messi wins again with Ronaldo placing 6th

2011: Messi wins for a third time in a row with Ronaldo jumping back to 2nd 

2012: Messi wins for a fourth time in a row with Ronaldo staying at 2nd place 

2013: Ronaldo comes back and wins with Messi 2nd 

2014: Ronaldo wins for a second time with Messi finishing 2nd again

2015: Messi wins again and Ronaldo goes back to 2nd 

2016: Ronaldo wins with Messi placing 2nd 

2017: Ronaldo wins a second time with Messi in 2nd

2018: Luka Modric wins the Ballon d’Or breaking the run with Ronaldo 2nd and Messi 5th

2019: Messi wins with Ronaldo placing 3rd

2020: The awards were not held due to Covid-19

2021: Messi wins with Ronaldo finishing 6th

2022: Karim Benzama wins with Messi not qualifying and Ronaldo finishing 20th

This shows the dramatic drop in performance from them, which may show that the rain of unbelievable performance may be coming to an end.