A night of highs and lows
The 2024 Ballon d’Or ceremony has finally aired. It was a night of celebration and controversy as the winners were selected to many spectators’ dismay and delight.
Manchester City’s Rodrigo Cascante known as Rodri is this year’s winner of the men’s Ballon d’Or award, following last year’s Lionel Messi win. Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmati won the women’s title, for the second year in a row.
For Rodri, he is the second footballer in almost a decade that won the award as a member of the English Premier League. The previous Premier League winner was Cristiano Ronaldo who won it in 2008 under Alex Fergusson’s Manchester United.
From then, the award switched between Ronaldo and Messi as the two players dominated the French Football run ceremony’s stage year after year. Between these two legends, only three other players have won. Rodri now stands as the 3rd, being crowned winner, right as the legendary players’ reign comes to an end.
As exciting as this new era is, it has drawn a lot of criticism from supporters of the sport, with some voices claiming that the French Football Magazine event is losing credibility. This statement was voiced by Cristiano Ronaldo who has won the event’s award four times, trailing behind Messi’s unbeaten record of five wins.
Former French footballer, Zinedine Zidane, who won the award in 1998 added to the discourse saying, “Honestly, this award lost its credibility in 2018 when Cristiano Ronaldo did not win it.”
That was one of three times a player other than Messi or Ronaldo won the award. The winner in 2018 was Real Madrid and Croatia star, Luka Modric. Karim Benzema, another French footballer, would precede Modric in 2022. He was also a Real Madrid star.
The night’s controversy sparked as fans and pundits had expected another Real Madrid player to win the award for a third time in between the two legends’ reign. The top Real Madrid candidates were English midfielder Jude Bellingham and Spanish right-back, Dani Carvajal — who himself had won the recent Euros tournament with Rodri.
Arguably the biggest and most popular runner up though was 24-year-old Brazilian striker, Vinicius Junior. Real Madrid was so certain in their belief that they deserved to win, that they gave a statement to French Football’s Rodri decision saying, “If the award criteria doesn’t give it to Vinicius as the winner, then those same criteria should point to Carvajal as the winner. As this was not the case, it is clear that Ballon d’Or does not respect Real Madrid. Real Madrid does not go where it is not respected.”
True to their words, Rodri would celebrate the night while the entire Real Madrid team boycotted the event.
It may be a sad day in Madrid, but all of Spain celebrates as both winners were Spanish. Rodri and Bonmati led their respective national teams to glory in both the men’s Euros and the Women’s World Cup.
This article was originally published in print Volume 24, Issue 4 on Thursday, December 5.
