{"id":172565,"date":"2019-12-03T08:59:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T06:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=172565"},"modified":"2019-12-03T08:01:52","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T07:01:52","slug":"lionel-messi-moves-ahead-of-ronaldo-with-record-sixth-ballon-dor-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=172565","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi moves ahead of Ronaldo with record sixth Ballon d’Or award"},"content":{"rendered":"
Barcelona star Lionel Messi has won a record sixth Ballon d’Or crown moving ahead of great rival Cristiano Ronaldo.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old Argentinian forward <\/strong>held off the challenge of Holland centre-back Virgil Van Dijk, whose performances helped Liverpool to the Champions League title.<\/p>\n

Messi’s tally of 54 goals for club and country in the 2018-19 season also saw him handed the Best FIFA<\/strong> Men’s award in September, while Van Dijk won UEFA’s <\/strong>Men’s Player of the Year.<\/p>\n

Messi warned his rivals he aims to keep on breaking records and has no plans to start easing off in his early 30s as he is “focused on the future”.<\/p>\n

He said: “I’m going to enjoy this with my family. Because those times when it’s possible to do it do not last long.<\/p>\n

“Tomorrow we will have to focus again on other objectives. I am already focused on the future. This gives me great pride, it gives me a lot of strength to continue my work.”<\/p>\n

Van Dijk could have been the first defender to lift the Ballon d’Or since Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro in 2006, but Messi’s triumph meant he had to settle for second place.<\/p>\n

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\"Ballon<\/p>\n<\/div>

Van Dijk, Messi and Rapinoe all enjoyed stellar seasons<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Van Dijk still finished ahead of five-time winner Ronaldo<\/strong>, with his Liverpool team-mate Sadio Mane fourth.<\/p>\n

“It was an amazing year, but there’s a couple of players like that who are a bit unnatural,” said Van Dijk, of Messi and Ronaldo.<\/p>\n

“So you need to respect greatness as well.”<\/p>\n

Megan Rapinoe won the Women’s Ballon d’Or after leading the United States to the Women’s World Cup title, scoring six goals and laying on three assists.<\/p>\n

In a recorded message, she told the audience: “I’m so sad I can’t make it tonight.<\/p>\n

“It’s absolutely incredible congrats to the other nominees. I can’t believe I’m the one winning in this field, it’s been an incredible year.”<\/p>\n

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\"Lucy<\/p>\n<\/div>

Lucy Bronze came second in the Women’s Ballon d’Or <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

England’s Lucy Bronze came second as the Lyon full-back starred in the Lionesses’ run to the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

Juventus defender Matthijs De Ligt claimed the 2019 Kopa Trophy for the young player award.<\/p>\n

Alisson Becker lifted the inaugural Yachine Trophy to reward the top goalkeeper.<\/p>\n

Ballon d’Or results:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Lionel Messi – Barcelona
\n2. Virgil van Dijk – Liverpool
\n3. Cristiano Ronaldo – Juventus
\n4. Sadio Mane – Liverpool
\n5. Mo Salah – Liverpool
\n6. Kylian Mbappe – Paris Saint-Germain
\n7. Alisson – Liverpool
\n8. Robert Lewandowski – Bayern Munich
\n9. Bernardo Silva – Manchester City
\n10. Riyad Mahrez – Manchester City
\n11. Frenkie De Jong – Barcelona
\n12. Raheem Sterling – Manchester City
\n13. Eden Hazard – Real Madrid
\n14. Kevin de Bruyne – Manchester City
\n15. Matthijs de Ligt – Juventus
\n16. Sergio Aguero – Manchester City
\n17. Roberto Fermino – Liverpool
\n18. Antoine Griezmann – Barcelona
\n19. Trent Alexander-Arnold – Liverpool
\n20. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – Arsenal & Dusan Tadic – Ajax<\/p>\n

Women’s Ballon d’Or results:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Megan Rapinoe – Reign FC
\n2. Lucy Bronze – Lyon
\n3. Alex Morgan – Orlando Pride<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barcelona star Lionel Messi has won a record sixth Ballon d’Or crown moving ahead of great rival Cristiano Ronaldo. The 32-year-old Argentinian forward held off the challenge of Holland centre-back Virgil Van Dijk, whose performances helped Liverpool to the Champions League title. Messi’s tally of 54 goals for club and country in the 2018-19 season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":172566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[10667],"class_list":["post-172565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-more","tag-lionel-messi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=172565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/172566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=172565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=172565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}