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The Ballon d’Or is an award given for individual performances over a calendar year. It is easily the most prestigious individual award in football and over the years many famous players have won the award. In 2009 the award was renamed as the FIFA Ballon d’Or after merging it with the FIFA Player of the year award.Every year after the announcement of the results there are questions raised as to whether the player deserved the award ahead of some of the other contenders. Here are five such contenders who deserved to win the Ballon d’Or in the last decade but didn’t.
#1 Thierry Henry 2004
The former French striker and Arsenal legend had guided his club through an impressive league season in 2003-04 at the end of which Arsenal won the league title without losing a single game. This was the first time an English club managed to achieve this feat in over a century.
Henry had scored 46 goals in 2004 of which 43 were for Arsenal. He was also the winner of the European Golden Boot for the 2003-04 season and had won the PFA Player of the year award as well. Arsenal also managed to win the FA Community shield in 2004 after beating Manchester United.
He was once again considered to be a front runner for the Ballon d’Or award that season but eventually lost to Andriy Shevchenko. Shevcheko had also won the league title and the Super Cup with AC Milan in 2004, but his goal scoring record was inferior to Henry’s.
One can only wonder if Henry’s failure to help France defend their Euro title in 2004 was one of the reasons he missed out on the award. More surprisingly Henry came 4th in the voting behind Shevhenko, Deco and Ronaldinho.
#2 Steven Gerrard 2005
If the Ballon d’Or is given for individual performances over a year then this man deserved it in 2005 and why exactly? Well, that’s because of what he did during the road to Istanbul and during the game at Istanbul in 2005. That’s where Gerrard guided Liverpool to their 5th Champions League title against all odds.
A very average Liverpool side were playing a very strong AC Milan side in the final of the Champions League in 2005. Liverpool were trailing 3-0 at half-time and an inspirational performance by the Liverpool captain leveled the score at 3-3 by the 60th minute of the game. Such was the individual charisma Gerrard had.
He was named the UEFA Club footballer of the year in 2005 and was also Liverpool’s top scorer that season.
Gerrard was nominated for the Ballon d’Or and finished third behind runner up Frank Lampard by a very small margin and behind winner Ronaldinho by a huge margin.
#3 Andres Iniesta 2010
Iniesta was a central figure in the Barcelona side that lifted the League title, UEFA Super Cup, Supercopa de Espana and FIFA Club World Cup in the 2009-10 season.
The Spaniard had continued his fine form into the next season as well and helped Barcelona lift the Supercopa de Espana in 2010 as well. Even though Iniesta had a terrific season for Barcelona, he had an even better World Cup with Spain.
He was part of the Spain team that travelled to South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The Spaniard had some fitness issues prior to the tournament and this had restricted his participation in the opening group stage loss against Switzerland.
He however regained match fitness soon and played an important role for the Spain team that reached the finals and was named man of the match in the games against Chile and Paraguay. But Iniesta’s best performance came in the final against Netherlands where he scored the only goal of the game in the dying minutes of extra time to give Spain the win and the FIFA World Cup.
Despite all his efforts and contributions for both club and country he finished second in the Ballon d’Or poll, behind Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi.
#4 Wesley Sneijder 2010
The 2010 Ballon d’Or should have either gone to Iniesta or Wesley Sneijder. Both players were important players in their club and country’s success that year.
Sneijder had moved to Internazionale prior to the start of the 2009-10 season and in his first season in Italy the Dutchman helped his club win the Serie A, UEFA Champions League and the Coppa Italia which completed the treble. In 2010 Inter also won the Supercoppa Italiana as well. Sneijder scored some crucial goals for Inter that year and also supplied the assist for Diego Milito’s first goal in the final of the UEFA Champions League against Bayern Munich.
The Dutch ace carried his form with Inter into the World Cup and was named man of the match in the games against Denmark, Japan, Brazil and Uruguay at the tournament. In fact he had scored the winning goals against Japan, Slovakia and Brazil. The attacking midfielder was awarded the Silver Ball at the tournament for being the second best player and was also given the bronze boot on the basis of goals per minute ratio even though he was tied with Forlan, Muller and Villa with 5 goals in the end.
Sneijder was also named by UEFA as their best club midfielder in 2010 and even after all this he was placed 4th in voting for the Ballon d’Or behind Messi, Iniesta and Xavi.
#5 Franck Ribery 2013
Ribery’s story is similar to Sneijder’s. The Frenchman had an incredible year with Bayern Munich and helped them on their way to the Bundesliga title, UEFA Champions League, DFB-Pokal, UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup in 2013.
Although Ribery didn’t have big numbers when it came to goals and assists when compared to Ronaldo and Messi, the Bayern Munich star still had 10 goals and 13 assists to his name in the 2012-13 season.
Ribery was voted the the best player in the 2012-13 edition of the Champions League and was subsequently selected as the best player in Europe ahead of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
But when it came to the Ballon d’Or award, Ribery finished third behind winner Cristiano Ronaldo and runner up Lionel Messi. It was a bit of a surprise as Ronaldo had failed to help his team to any titles that year.
