The nominations for the men’s 2024 Ballon d’Or were announced on Wednesday and there certainly were some eyebrows raised at some of the choices made for the coveted individual award.
First off, let’s recap that neither Lionel Messi, nor Cristiano Ronaldo made the top 30 shortlist. To make matters more surprising, Mohamed Salah was left out too. On the other hand, there were some players who you could say got kind of a free pass into the shortlist, and we reveal five of those players here!
List of 5 least deserving men’s Ballon d’Or 2024 nominees
Ademola Lookman
Now, we’re sure Ademola Lookman had a night to remember when he led Atalanta to win the Europa League while scoring a hat-trick in the final. He also led Nigeria to the AFCON final, scoring three times. However, he didn’t feature for 45% of the games Atalanta played in the 2023-24 season.
Gian Piero Gasperini rotated him a lot during the season, and just based off of one big performance, he was handed a spot in the top 30 supposed players in world football for the year 2024. Bit of a stretch?
Vitinha
The Portuguese midfielder is a very, very good player, there’s no doubt about it. However, when you look at the other midfielders in the top 30 nominations and compare their achievements to Vitinha, you’d absolutely wonder how has he made the list.
This argument gains more weight when you look at the minimal impact he had, leading to Portugal’s disappointing knockout of the Euro 2024 in the summer.
Dani Olmo
There is absolutely no doubt Dani Olmo is now considered among the best players in the world after Euro 2024, but Ballon d’Or is supposed to be a consideration of a player’s performances throughout the calendar year, which automatically makes fans consider the first half of the 2023-24 season together with the second.
Again, he was excellent at Euro 2024, but he produced that kind of form very rarely for RB Leipzig. In fact, Olmo started just 19 games in all competitions for the German side throughout the whole of the 2023-24 Bundesliga or Champions League campaigns combined. Someone like Riccardo Calafiori could have been a much better pick than Olmo.
Also Read: No Messi, Ronaldo! Ballon d’Or to have first-time winner
Emiliano Martinez
Did the selectors for Ballon d’Or nominations confuse 2024 for 2023? Yes, Martinez deserved the nomination last year after he had won the World Cup with Argentina in 2022. Also agreed on the point that he won the Copa America, that is justified too, but are Ballon d’Or nominations now being handed out for Champions League qualification too?
Yes, it might be a huge deal for Aston Villa, but speaking simply as a player in their squad and in terms of his impact leading towards Villa’s achievement, there’s not much to be rewarded with a Ballon d’Or nomination there.
Nico Williams
Before you think this is absolute nonsense, speaking about the whole of the 2023-24 season and the European Championship combined, who would you nominate in the top 30 of the Ballon d’Or among three players, Nico Williams, Julian Alvarez and Jamal Musiala?
Right?
Alvarez and Musiala had an incredible 2023-24 with Manchester City and Bayern Munich respectively, and surely deserved to be in the top 30, but didn’t make the cut. At least Alvarez should have made it, considering he won the Premier League and Copa America, while scoring 19 goals and providing 13 assists.