For the past six years the Ballon d'Or has been the personal awards of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. But can someone wrestle the award off either men now that it's not a FIFA award? Here's who is in the running to take it off them.
In the past few years as the FIFA Ballon d'Or has basically been decided by which of Barcelona and Real Madrid has had the better year with the answer basically deciding if Messi or Ronaldo deserves the trophy.
However newspaper France Football is back in charge of the award with international managers and captains no longer voting for the best player of the previous 365 days. That might mean we have a new winner.
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Today the 30 man shortlist was announced and here's the entire list:
Sergio Agüero (Manchester City)
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Borussia Dortmund)
Gareth Bale (Real Madrid)
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Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City)
Paulo Dybala (Juventus)
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Diego Godín (Atletico Madrid)
Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid)
Gonzalo Higuain (Juventus)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Manchester United)
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Andrés Iniesta (FC Barcelona)
Koke (Atletico Madrid)
Toni Kroos (Real Madrid)
Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
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Hugo Lloris (Tottenham Hotspur)
Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City)
Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona)
Luka Modric (Real Madrid)
Thomas Müller (Bayern Munich)
Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich)
Neymar (FC Barcelona)
Dimitri Payet (West Ham United)
Pepe (Real Madrid)
Paul Pogba (Manchester United)
Rui Patricio (Sporting)
Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)
Luis Suarez (FC Barcelona)
Jamie Vardy (Leicester City)
Arturo Vidal (Bayern Munich)
It'll be really interesting to see if someone else can win the award instead of the two La Liga megastars this season. Under the previous version you can guarantee Ronaldo would have won it.
Atleti's Griezmann and Barcelona's Suarez both arguably have better claims to the title having had brilliant years.
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