Cristiano Ronaldo wins his third Ballon Dor Award and the latest came in the 2014 FIFA Ballon Dor ceremony after helping Real Madrid to a massive year winning Copa Del Rey and Champions League 2014
We are heading into december of 2014 and this will be the last month of matches where players performances will count towards 2015 Ballon D’or award which will be handed out to one of the 23 nominees announced by FIFA. In the past the world cup performances always had a major impact on the winners decision, because only two times a player won the player of the year award having under performed in world cup or not participated what so ever. So who will win next years Ballon D’or ? Lets take a look at the nominees and we will predict our top 3.
FIFA Ballon D’or 2014 Nominees:
FIFA’s football experts and FranceFootball magazine experts choose the top 23 players who will be candidates to win the Ballon Dór 2015 award.
| NO# | DEFENDERS & KEEPRS | MIDFIELDERS | FORWARDS |
| 1 | Thibaut Courtois (GK) | Angel Di Maria | Gareth Bale |
| 2 | Manuel Neuer (GK) | Andres Iniesta | Karim Benzema |
| 3 | Javier Mascherano | Toni Kroos | Diego Costa |
| 4 | Sergio Ramos | Philipp Lahm | Arjan Robben |
| 5 | Bastian Schweinsteiger | Cristiano Ronaldo | |
| 6 | James Rodriguez | Zlatan Ibrahimovic | |
| 7 | Yaya Toure | Lionel Messi | |
| 8 | Eden Hazard | Thomas Muller | |
| 9 | Mario Gotze | Neymar | |
| 10 |
Luis Suarez who had an incredible year with Liverpool and his national side Uruguay was ommitted from the 23 man list and FIFA explain the decision of him being left out because he went against the spirit of the play in incident during world cup match against Italy. When he tried to bite Georgio Chellini on the shoulder and later got a 4 month long ban.
So now we know the 23 man list but who the winner will be, decided from now to the 12 Januaury 2015 when the FIFA annual awards ceremony takes place in Zurich ? lets take a look.
FIFA Ballon Dor 2015 – Top 3 & Winners Predictions:
Lionel Messi won the award record four times and that too in back to back years from 2010 to 2013 while Ronaldo has won it twice in 2009 and 2014. This years World Cup will have a major effect on the top three nominess.
- Cristiano Ronaldo had a terrible world cup campaign but he guided his club side Real Madrid to champions league glory as well as domestic cup and all that scoring loads of goals in 2014.
- Lionel Messi on the other hand suffered from injuries and finished his Barcelona season empty hand, but he turn things around with national team guiding them to world cup finals.
- Manuel Neuer is another notable peformer of 2014 as he was the key figure for Bayern Munich in their quest for back to back league titles but his biggest achievement came in the world cup where he took Germany all the way to world cup winners.
There were other notable names might also come into the reckoning, with the likes of World Cup golden boot winner James Rodriguez, Arjan Robben, Philip Lahm. But we can safely predict that the top three will be Messi, Ronaldo and Neuer
How is the winner of Ballon Dor will be decided ?
National team coaches and captains plus some international recognized journalists will vote to pick the winner of Ballon Dor, but how does it all work ? every national team coach and captain will have to pick three players in order of prefernce and FIFA awards top choice 5 points, second choice 3 points and third choice 1 point.
Here is the official document showing the result of 2012 Ballon Dor award:
let’s hope Manuel neuer wins this n gives a break to messi Rinaldo rivalry