When Gabriel Hano and Jacques Ferrand, journalists from "L'Equipe" and "France Football", presented the first Ballon d'Or to Blackpool legend and English knight Stanley Matthews 69 years ago, few believed that the most prestigious individual award in football would be born then.
Years and decades passed, the famous "Ballon d'Or" gained more and more owners, but no one has ever managed to do what Lionel Messi has done, and it is unlikely that anyone will achieve something similar for a long time to come.
The "Wizard of Rosary" won the "France Football" award eight times, and sometimes, even when the results were perhaps not up to par, his footballing genius would prevail.
His closest rival is Cristiano Ronaldo, who has won five Ballon d'Ors, while the three-time winners were legends Michel Platini, Johan Cruyff and Marco van Basten. Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima, Franz Beckenbauer, Alfredo di Stefano, Kevin Keegan and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge each won the award twice.
Luis Suarez, Eusebio, Bobby Charlton, Raymond Kopa, Gerd Müller, Zinedine Zidane, Gianni Rivera, Ruud Gullit, Lothar Mathieu, Roberto Baggio, Hristo Stoichkov, Andriy Shevchenko, George Best, Alan Simonsen, Ronaldinho, Matthews, Omar Svori, Josef Masopust, Lev Yashin, Denis Law, Florian Albert, Oleg Blokhin, Paolo Rossi, Igor Belanov, Jean-Pierre Papin, Georges Weah, Matthias Sammer, Rivaldo, Luís Figo, Michael Owen, Pavel Nedved, Fabio Cannavaro, Kaka, Luka Modrić, Karim Benzema, Rodri and Dembélé have each won one Ballon d'Or.
Interestingly, Messi is the only Argentine to win the Ballon d'Or since 1995, when the rule was introduced that allowed players born outside Europe to be chosen as the best.
France also won eight Ballon d'Ors, with Dembele taking home the last one last night. Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal each won seven of these awards, while Spain, for example, won four.
It would be "only" four, since Barcelona and Real Madrid are the clubs with by far the most Ballons d'Or - 12 each.
Players from Italian giants Juventus and Milan brought home eight awards each, Bayern five, Manchester United four... It sounds strange for a club with such a great tradition and so many legends, but Liverpool has only had one player who won the Ballon d'Or - it was Michael Owen in 2001. The club's famous mastermind Keegan was the best twice, but only after he moved to Hamburg.
Only one master from the former Yugoslavia has won the Ballon d'Or - it was Croatian captain Modrić in 2018.
Two Montenegrin legends - Dejan Savićević and Predrag Mijatović - were also very close.
"The Genius" came second in the 1991 selection behind Jean-Pierre Papin, even though he led Red Star Belgrade to the European and World Cup crowns that year, and defeated the Frenchman in the Champions League final. It was one of the injustices of the "France Football" jury.
In 1995, Liberian George Weah became the first player from outside Europe to win the most prestigious award, and the second player from outside the Old Continent to win the Ballon d'Or two years later was the great Brazilian Ronaldo.
Mijatović finished second, scoring goals that launched a new era for Real Madrid. However, the magic of the then-young Ronaldo was decisive.
Finally, a few more interesting facts about the Ballon d'Or...
Cruyff became the first in history to be named the best three times, and Platini the first (and, along with Messi, the only one) with three triumphs in a row.
The only goalkeeper to win the Ballon d'Or is the great Lev Yashin, and Spanish legend Luis Suarez is the first midfielder to win this award.
Beckenbauer is the only defender to have won the award twice, Weah remains the only African player to have won the Ballon d'Or, while Brazilian Ronaldo remains the youngest winner, having won it in 1997 at the age of 21 years and 96 days.
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