Today, October 17, at the Théâtre Du Châtelet in Paris, the ceremony will take place to award the Ballon d’Or to the weekly “France Football”, awarded to the best footballer in the world of the past year. The authoritative Spanish sports daily ‘Marca’ has revealed the name of the winner of the famous award, as well as the winners of the ‘Best Goalkeeper of the Year’ and ‘Best Young Footballer in the World’ nominations.
As expected, the holder of the Ballon d’Or will be the striker of the French team and Real Madrid, Karim Benzema, who in the defeated squad pledged, among other things, the “goleador” of the national team Poland and FC Barcelona, and until the summer of this year, Bayern Munich, Robert Lewandowski, as well as the Egyptian striker of Liverpool, Mohamed Salah and his compatriot the striker of Paris Saint-Germain, Kylian Mbappe and the club colleague of Brazilian striker Vinicius Junior or the Norwegian bomber of Manchester City, and previously Borussia Dortmund Erling Haaland.
The prestigious award will be presented by Didier Drogba and host Sandy Heribert. Benzema will be the first French player since the 21st century to receive the Ballon d’Or. The last Frenchman to be voted the best player in the world was Real Madrid striker Zinedine Zidane, who won the 1998 World Cup with the national team 24 years ago, scoring two goals in the Brazil final, which earned him the “coronation”. The Ballon d’Or will go to the French player for the seventh time. Previously it was used by Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini three times, Jean-Pierre Papin and “Zizou”.
When Zidane won his first and only Ballon d’Or, Benzema was only 11 years old. Born in Lyon 34 years ago, this son of Algerian emigrants has traveled a long and difficult path so far. He trained at Olympique Lyonnais with whom he broke early records in record time. In 2004, the current Real Madrid footballer became European U-17 champion with the famous “87 generation”, which included talents such as Samir Nasri, Jeremy Menez or Hatem Ben Arfa in its ranks.
Benzema was not considered the best player of his generation, but through perseverance, dedication, hard work and, above all, consistency, he became an absolute legend at Real Madrid, which he joined in 2009 for 35 million euros. In 13 years, Karim became the second top scorer in the history of “Los Blancos” with 328 goals, won the Champions League 5 times, was Cristiano Ronaldo’s assistant in the best years of the Portuguese striker and a star in his eleven, meanwhile he was dropped from the France team after the “Sextape” scandal with Mathieu Valbuena, and above all, he gained recognition in the world of football.
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