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#2 Decreasing Ballon d’Or odds
Lionel Messi had been an overwhelming favourite to lift this year’s Ballon d’Or in the beginning of the month of May. But his chances of lifting the most prestigious personal accolade faded away with each passing day.
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner looked all set to make it six, when he crashed Liverpool single-handedly in the first leg of the Champions League. But since then, Messi’s chances of lifting the famous accolade only toned down after the Champions League exit at Liverpool.
If recent history is anything to be taken into consideration, only the Champions League winners have received the honour of collecting the highly-coveted individual accolade.
Should Liverpool win the Champions League at Madrid on the 1st of June, then the chances of any of the Liverpool trio, Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane, to go on and lift Ballon d’Or are immense.
