Every year, the specialist magazine “France Football” awards the Ballon d’Or to the best footballer in the world. Now the 30 nominees have been published. Among the candidates are also professionals from FC Bayern and former BVB and Eintracht Frankfurt.
The nominated players, who either played in the Bundesliga last season or are currently playing, include Josko Gvardiol (RB Leipzig, Manchester City), Jamal Musiala (FC Bayern), Jude Bellingham (BVB, Real Madrid), Randal Kolo Muani (Eintracht Frankfurt, PSG), Min-jae Kim (SSC Napoli, FC Bayern) and Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur, FC Bayern).
Musiala and Bellingham can also have hopes of being voted the best U21 player. Xavi Simons (PSV Eindhoven, RB Leipzig) is also nominated in this category.
With Ilkay Gündogan, who left treble winners Manchester City for FC Barcelona in the summer, a German international is on the list. Marc-André ter Stegen from FC Barcelona is also up for election as the best goalkeeper.
Haaland and Messi the favourites?
Erling Haaland from ManCity or world champion Lionel Messi are probably the favorites in the race. While the Norwegian was recently named Europe’s footballer of the year, the Argentine won the world footballer’s choice in January.
On the list of 30 names in women’s football, Alexandra Popp and Lena Oberdorf (both VfL Wolfsburg) are German representatives.
The Golden Ball has been awarded annually by the specialist magazine “France Football” since 1956. The winner was initially considered “Europe’s footballer of the year”, since 2007 the world’s best kicker has been chosen in competition with FIFA’s world footballer’s choice (since 1991).
From 2010 to 2015, the newspaper and the world association cooperated in the selection of the world footballer, since 2016 two different prizes have been awarded.
Last year, Karim Benzema, who joined Al-Ittihat in Saudi Arabia from Real Madrid in the summer, won the award. The Frenchman prevailed ahead of Sadio Mané (then FC Bayern) and Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne.
Whoever gets the coveted trophy this year will be announced on October 30th at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.