Karim Benzema fails to break Cristiano Ronaldo record despite winning 2022 Ballon d’Or
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Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema
The last Ballon d’Or award went to Karim Benzema, who easily defeated Sadio Mane by a margin of 356 votes. It is the second-largest victory in the award’s history, trailing only Cristiano Ronaldo’s triumph in 2016 by 429 votes.
After scoring 44 goals across all competitions for Real Madrid last season as they won both La Liga and the Champions League, Karim Benzema received 549 votes. His performance in Europe, where he scored 15 goals in 12 games, including two hat-tricks, was particularly spectacular.
The list, which was made public by France Football, also included players from the Premier League by the names of Fabinho, Riyad Mahrez, Son Heung-Min, Erling Haaland, and Son Heung-Min (two points). Numerous Premier League players, most notably Ronaldo, did not earn any votes.
The forward, who won the last of his five Ballon D’Or awards in 2017, is not on the podium for the first time in seventeen years. For the first time since 2005, his bitter rival Lionel Messi is no longer among the 30 players that made the final 30. Harry Kane, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Phil Foden, all stars for England, were all shortlisted despite not earning any votes.
Karim Benzema won the 2022 Ballon d’Or award for first time
At the event conducted on Tuesday at the Theatre du Chatalet in Paris, Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema was named the winner of the 2022 Men’s Ballon d’Or. After winning the La Liga and Champions League with Real Madrid last season, Benzema was the presumptive winner of the award this year.
With 27 goals, he led the league in scoring in the 2021–22 season. Benzema also performed admirably during Madrid’s Champions League winning streak, finishing with 15 goals to lead the league. The attacker made 46 appearances in all competitions, scoring 44 goals overall and collecting 15 assists.
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Not just the goals helped Benzema win his first Ballon d’Or. Team performance is one of the three key requirements for obtaining the honor, and last season, Benzema excelled in this area. His clutch performances in the Champions League were a key reason why Madrid won the competition for a record-breaking 14th time.
In the knockout round of the Champions League last season, Benzema scored 10 goals, including consecutive hat-tricks against Paris Saint-Germain in the Round-of-16 second leg encounter and Chelsea in the quarterfinal first leg match.
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Ujan Chakraborty
(1240 Articles Published)