5 Great Absentees from the Ballon d’Or 2022

Recently, the prestigious France Football magazine revealed the 30 candidates to win the prestigious Ballon d'Or, which this time will award the best footballer in the world in the 2021-2022 season. Soccer players like Karim Benzema, Thibaut Courtois, Vinicius Júnior, Kevin De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané seem to be the main candidates to win this recognition.

However, just as the names mentioned above aspire to win this award, there are other players who have been left out of the final list, and that has not left anyone indifferent. Names like Lionel Messi, Pedri, Filip Kostić, Rafael Santos Borré and the German Thomas Müller could perfectly appear in the 30 best footballers in the world last season, but they have not managed to sneak into the list. Here we give you more details.

Leo Messi

Possibly, Lionel Messi is the most relevant name absent from this list. The trans-Andean did not miss a nomination since 2005 and last year he managed to win the award. Despite being key in Argentina's qualification for Qatar 2022 and having a much better second half of the season than the first with PSG, it hasn't been enough for Messi to be on this select list.

The former Barcelona star played 34 games last season with the French team (counting the league, cup, and Champions League), scoring 12 goals and making 15 assists, winning the Ligue. It is true that these numbers are far from the exorbitant figures that he achieved season after season with Barcelona. But another player, with the same facts, would have perfectly reached a position in the list.

Pedri

At just 19 years old, Pedri has become one of the most promising players in the world of football. He stayed with the Golden Boy last season (an award that recognizes the best under 21 footballers in the world). In addition, he has already played a European Championship, Olympic Games and the Champions League, and seems to have no ceiling. Despite the above, his last season was irregular, since the first half of the course was lost due to injury. However, when he returned, he once again showed his intelligence and great ability to constantly influence matches with high-quality actions. He is one of the best players at the moment. If this season he reaches the regularity that injuries did not allow him to achieve last year, he can make a leap and appear on the next Ballon d'Or payroll. He has plenty of quality.

Also read: 5 Candidates to Win the Premier League this Season

Filip Kostic

The Serbian won the UEFA Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt. That earned him to make the leap at 29 years old and sign at Juventus for this year. As a left-winger, he got tired of standing out in the German team, a team with which he played 172 games, scoring 33 goals and giving 65 assists, impressive numbers for anyone playing that position.

His great long-distance shot, the precision in his centers and his associative capacity are qualities that have made him one of the best lanes in the world in recent years. For the same reason, France Football's decision not to mention him in the final list seems difficult to understand. But who knows, if he has a great year at Juventus, maybe he will appear on the payroll next year.

Rafael Santos Borré

He had the difficult mission of making us forget the goals that André Silva scored for Frankfurt. In fact, the Colombian Rafael Santos Borré did not disappoint. In his second experience in European football, Borré has won the UEFA Europa League, which allows him to play in the Champions League this year and with all due merit. Last season, 12 goals and 7 assists were the numbers of an attacker who also usually participates a lot in the development of the game. All of this, due to his good handling of both legs, his well-worked technique and his great game both from the back and from the front to the bow.

He becomes a more than useful resource against different scenarios that can occur in the same game. That said, his absence is quite strange, since he could be considered perfectly among the top 30 of the year.

Thomas Müller

Years do not pass for the German, who continues to win titles (Bayern won the Bundesliga again) and has become one of the most outstanding players of the last decade for Germany. For the Bundesliga alone, last season, Müller scored 11 goals and gave 21 assists, reaching that number of assists for the third consecutive season in the league. Not content with that, he is one of Bayern's most regular players. Time passes, and he is still in the star eleven.

Perhaps the early elimination in the Champions League, a competition in which Bayern was left out in the quarterfinals at the hands of Villarreal, influenced the decision to leave him out of the Ballon d'Or this edition. However, Thomas continues to play, and it would not be unreasonable for him to appear at the top of the list next year.