Ranking the 10 best players who never won a Ballon d’Or | OneFootball

While Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo blocked the path to the Ballon d’Or, plenty of all-time greats saw their chances come and go.

Those two shared the golden ball for a decade during which some of the best players to ever kick a ball plied their trade.

Here are the 10 best players to never win the award:

10. Arjen Robben

One of the signs of a genuinely incredible player is that everyone knew what Arjen Robben was going to do and yet no one could do a thing about it.

Robben’s signature move was to cut in from the right wing before putting more curl on the ball than a boomerang as it flew past a helpless keeper and into the net.

He was good at Chelsea but it was at Bayern where he combined with Franck Ribery to create one of the best partnerships in world football and it was the Dutchman who scored the winning goal in the 2013 Champions League final. Had it not been for Iker Casillas then Robben would also be remembered as a World Cup-winning hero.

9. Wayne Rooney

While most players get better in many people’s eyes after they retire, for Rooney it is almost the opposite with people forgetting just how good he was.

In the late ‘00s, there was a not outrageous argument to suggest he was right up there with Messi and Ronaldo and while those two would soon disappear onto another level, Rooney was consistently great for a number of years.

He was the perfect mix of physicality and scoring ability and although his temper sometimes saw him head for an earlybath, Ferguson was a master at using that aggression to get the best out of him.

Rooney is Manchester United’s all-time top scorer, he was England’s too for a while and is arguably the best player the birthplace of football has ever produced.

8. Manuel Neuer

Of the 69 golden balls handed out, just one has been placed into the safe hands of a goalkeeper.

That was Lev Yashin back in 1963 but Manuel Neuer deserves one not only for his performances but for his revolution of the role.

These days, a goalkeeper receiving the ball 20 yards outside of his box seems normal but back when Neuer first started doing it, he was a pariah.

It is often claimed he could play as a midfielder but that would remove one of his other incredible talents, shot-stopping.

Neuer is so good at that element that he has a YouTube compilation based on one-handed saves alone.

7. Paolo Maldini

Fabio Cannavaro is the last defender to win the award but we reckon even he would not claim to be the best Italian defender of all-time for that accolade goes to Paolo Maldini.

Coolness personified, Maldini didn’t do slide tackles because he didn’t need to.

Starting at left back, he ended his career centrally and attackers breathed a sigh of relief when he did finally call it quits.

He played in eight European Cup finals, winning five of them. He has seven Serie A winners’ medals at home. He may have retired before Italy’s 2006 World Cup success but he did play in the 1994 final, the same year he was voted third in the Ballon d’Or rankings.

Ronaldinho once said: “He was one of the best defenders in Champions League history, but what was so impressive about him is that when he was on the ball he didn’t look like a defender, but like an elegant midfield player.” Sums it up.

6. Robert Lewandowski

Had it not been for a worldwide pandemic, Lewandowski would not even be on this list.

The goalscoring machine was at his brilliant best at Bayern in the late 2010s. He scored 34 in 31 Bundesliga matches in the 2019-2020 season and followed it up with 41 in 29.

He was denied the 2020 Ballon d’Or when France Football cancelled the event due to COVID but he was clearly the best player in the world at that time.

His later career has seen him move to Barcelona and even at 37, he continues to impress.

5. Luis Suarez

At the time, it did seem a risk for Barcelona to spend £65m on a player who had just bitten an opponent for the third time but the move to his dream club curbed Suarez’s darkest elements of his personality.

He formed the final part of possibly the greatest attacking trio of all time and in 11 years, the only man to win the Golden Boot not called Ronaldo or Messi was Suarez.

With the Uruguayan, Barcelona achieved another treble and he is the club’s third top scorer of all time.

4. Xavi

The metronome midfielder was a central part of one of the greatest teams of all time.

Xavi did not score the goals that Messi or Iniesta did but he was every bit as important. He is arguably the best passer of all time. Definitely one of the best Spanish players of all time and for some, the best midfielder ever.

He came third in the Ballon d’Or rankings on three occasions which is no shame given who he was up against.

3. Neymar

In a world without Lionel Messi, there is a good chance Neymar has more than one Ballon d’Or in his trophy cabinet.

One of the most naturally gifted footballers of all time, there was little the Brazilian could not do with the ball and he was one of few players to live up to his wonderkid status.

Whether it was money or the desire to leave Messi’s shadow, the decision to depart the Camp Nou was a pivotal one with Neymar the star in a team of individuals.

Messi, and Ronaldo, blocked his path to Ballon d’Or glory but he was easily the third-best player in the world for a number of years.

2. Thierry Henry

Few players had the ability to produce magic as easily as Thierry Henry did.

Speed, close control, elegance on the ball but most of all, finishing.

Henry could score all manner of goals and for many, he is the face of the Premier League. After trophy-filled years with Arsenal, he headed for Barcelona where he won the Champions League and he has a World Cup winners’ medal too.

As for the Ballon d’Or, he was runner-up to Pavel Nedved in 2003 but deserved one for what he could do on the ball and the career he had.

1. Andres Iniesta

That goal makes Iniesta the most important person in Spanish football history, but his career is so much more than that one moment.

With ball control that could rival Messi’s, Iniesta was like Xavi in his ability to control the midfield but unlike his Spanish colleague, Iniesta was pretty handy at scoring too.

His trophies are there for all to see but you would be better off watching clips of him to see what sets him apart from the rest. You could not get the ball off him and he had everything you would want from a footballer.