Yesterday Andres Iniesta announced he will leave Barcelona at the end of this season. The player who’s about to win his 32nd club trophy and who won three international tournaments in a row, never won the Ballon D’Or. France Football offered him a apology this week, for the fact he never won this individual prize. This made me thinking about other players that never won this trophy. We put a list together with five players that, just like Iniesta, haven’t won the Ballon D’or.
Three players never won the Ballon D’Or
I don’t say these three players are the best player that never won this trophy, but it’s just a personal list with players who had all the quality to win the Ballon D’Or at least once.
Thierry Henry
The French player was part of Arsenal Invincibles team in the 2003-2004 season. He was one of the best strikers at that moment and scored goals for fun for Arsenal. He scored a total of 226 goals in 370 matches for the Gunners. Many Arsenal fans still consider him to be best player ever played for their club. He formed the perfect partnership with Dennis Bergkamp. If there was a trophy for partnerships, these two would have won it for sure.
Andrea Pirlo
One of the biggest qualities in football, is making things look easy. Watching Pirlo play, gave everybody the idea that football is such an easy sport. He was always calmed and collected and it looked like he never even ran. I always felt he didn’t even needed to take a shower after the match. Not because he’s lazy, but because he controlled every match he played in. Pirlo is without a doubt a midfield maestro who could have one several Ballon D’ors if he didn’t play in the Messi and Ronaldo era.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Zlatan is another victim of Messi and Ronaldo. Can you name any player that won 12 league titles in13 years with six different clubs? Well Zlatan Ibrahimovic did! Zlatan’s league titles:
- 2003-2004 with Ajax
- 2004-2005 with Juventus
- 2005-2006 with Juventus (although taken away in a later stage)
- 2006-2007 with Internazionale
- 2007-2008 with Internazionale
- 2008-2009 with Internazionale
- 2009-2010 with Barcelona
- 2010-2011 with AC Milan
- 2012-2013 with PSG
- 2013-2014 with PSG
- 2014-2015 with PSG
- 2015-2016 with PSG
This is quite an impressive list for a player that never won the Ballon D’or. There are many other world class players that never won it. Maybe we will write some more posts like this in the future. Who do you think is the best player that never won the Ballon D’Or?