Lionel Messi Wins Ballon d’Or 2019 as Megan Rapinoe, Mathijs de Ligt & Alisson Becker Claim other Awards

Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or 2019 in the ceremony in Paris on Monday, winning it for a record sixth time.

One of Lionel Messi and Virgin van Dijk were the favourites to win the football’s biggest prize, and it is the Argentine who received the 64th edition of the Ballon d’Or.

International journalists and national team coaches and captains, for the players they deemed to have performed the best in the previous calendar year, from an initial nomination of 30 players.

As a few players were still walking on the Red Carpet making their way into the Ceremony, the rankings for the top 30 were being announced starting from 30.

Five-time winner Cristiano Ronaldo was a notable absentee in the ceremony.

Players ranked from 21-30

22nd – Son Heung-min (Tottenham Hotspur)
23rd – Hugo Lloris (Tottenham)
24th – Kalidou Koulibaly (Napoli)
24th – Marc André ter Stegen (Barcelona)
26th – Karim Benzema (Real Madrid)
26th – Georginio Wijnaldum (Liverpool)
28th – João Felix (Atletico Madrid)
28th – Marquinhos (PSG)
28th – Donny van der Beek (Ajax)

Sergio Aguero‘s domestic treble winning season earned him a 16th place in the rankings. His Manchester City teammate Kevin de Bruyne, despite missing a major part of the season due to injury, managed 14th place, while fellow Belgian Eden Hazard has to be satisfied with 13th place after the Europa League winning camapaign with Chelsea.

Players ranked from 11-20

20th – Pierre Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal)
20th – Dusan Tadic (Ajax)
19th – Trent Alexander Arnold (Liverpool)
18th – Antoine Griezmann (Barcelona)
17th – Roberto Firmino (Liverpool)
16th – Sergio Agüero (Manchester City)
15th – Matthijs de Ligt (Juventus)
14th – Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City)
13th – Eden Hazard (Real Madrid)
12th – Raheem Sterling (Manchester City)
11th – Frenkie de Jong (Barcelona)

Players ranked from 1-10

10th- Riyad Maharez (Manchester City)

9th- Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)

8th- Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)

7th- Alisson Becker (Liverpool)

6th- Kylian Mbappe (PSG)

5th-

Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)

4th- Sadio Mane (Liverpool)

3rd- Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)

2nd- Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus)

1st- Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

Apart from the Ballon d’Or, the ceremony gave away womnen’s Ballon d’Or, Kopa Trophy- to the best performing player under the age of 21, and the newly introduced Yashin award for the best performing goalkeeper.

Last year’s Kopa Trophy winner

Kylian Mbappe gave the award to Matthijs de Ligt this year.

The women’s Balon d’Or was won by Megan Rapinoe, with Lucy Bronze and Alex Morgan finishing behind her.

Liverpool’s Allison, who was ranked seventh in the Ballon d’Or list, also won the inaugural Yachine trophy.