Since the announcement of the 30-man 2021 Ballon d’Or shortlist on Friday by France Football, the football sphere has been agog with debates over who will walk away with the laurel when the winner is revealed on November 29 in Paris at a gala event at the Chatelet Theatre.
The 30-man shortlist, taking into regard performances of the last 12 months, includes names like Robert Lewandowski, Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, Jorginho, Riyad Mahrez, Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Mohamed Salah.
The PUNCH talked to football writer and analyst, Clinton Mcdubus, to find out at whose feet the French award will land this year. Mcdubus believes that the 2021 Ballon d’Or will go to Bayern Munich and Poland’s striker, Robert Lewandowski.
Mcdubus believes the 33-year-old has a lot in his way: the fact that he broke a Bundesliga goal-scoring record last season, scoring 41 goals to outstrip Gerd Müller’s previous record of 40 goals in a single season. Also the fact that the Pole, unlike Messi, Kante, and Jorginho, has been remarkable since the start of the new football season.
“I think that Lewandowski will win it. In terms of how he’s started the season, I think he’s going to have the freshest, most memorable recent performances. We always know that these things come to play at some point — what people remember can influence how they vote. The more Lewandowski continues to score every game, break records, the more likely it is that he will get the award.”
McDubus references last year’s Ballon d’Or award which was cancelled due to COVID-19, and which many football fans believe ought to have been awarded to Lewandowski. McDubus reasons that this may influence the decision of many voters, as they may “want to look at that and say he didn’t get it last year, he should get it this year because he’s also kept up that level and he’s scored a ton of goals still.”
“I think Messi comes second,” Mcdubus continues, “and I think that Kante comes third.”
Despite his choice of Lewandowski, McDubus believes the race will “go down to the wire”, resolving itself only in the final weeks.
He says, “This is because this year, unlike most other years, there’s no stand-out candidate that ticks most of the boxes emphatically. Certain players look like frontrunners, but even their cases are not as strong as one would normally expect.
“I believe that it will come down to the final two months leading up to the voting deadline, so a lot of players within the conversation still have a chance of putting themselves ahead of others with performances in the next [two] months.”
Mcdubus says that among the players in contention for the award, forwards have an edge over both midfielders and defenders to boost their chances before the voting ends. He says, “There’s not much that a central midfielder or defender can do within a month or two that will strongly elevate the person’s Ballon d’Or chances, because those kinds of players tend to get more recognition in the latter stages of competition especially when the forwards are not firing as much. So the kind of people that would get a boost with the Ballon d’Or are people whose performances on the pitch are more quantifiable.”
The Ballon d’Or is an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football. It’s one of the oldest and generally regarded as the most prestigious individual award for football players. It has been awarded since 1956.
Lionel Messi with six awards has won the most Ballons d’Or in history. With France Football being forced to take a coronavirus-enforced break from Ballon d’Or duty in 2020, the Argentine is also the last person to have won the award, claiming it in 2019.
A selection of international journalists, national team coaches and captains will be polled to determine the Ballon d’Or winner, with each voter being asked to pick out their top five.
