5 reasons why David De Gea should win the Ballon d'Or?

#3 Goalkeepers and defenders deserve credit

Final Italy v France - World Cup 2006 — Cannavaro was unbeatable at the World Cup 2006

Good God, isn’t that already way past its due time? There are a lot of football pundits who believe that attacks win you games whilst defences wins you championships and yet those championship winning players that are a part of the defence never get the credit for what they do.

If one is to look for the last time a defender or keeper won the award, they would have to go way back to 2006 when Fabio Cannavaro won the award for his exceptional performances in the World Cup of 2006.

Before him, one would have to go a further ten years back to find another defender that lifted this award as Matthias Sammer won the award in 1997. In fact, Cannavaro was only the fourth player from the defensive side of the game to win the award, with the previous three being the aforementioned Lev Yashin, Franz Beckenbauer and Matthias Sammer.

So, as we all know, Ballon d’Or is a forward-biased award and it's about time that someone with a defensive mindset won the coveted award.

About the author

Umid Kumar Dey has been writing at Sportskeeda since January 2015, focusing mainly on football, cricket and WWE. In that time, he has gone on to become one of the most-read writers on the website.

His work has also featured on Goal and he has also edited a book. Currently, he works as a freelance writer who aspires to become a data scientist in the field of sports.

You can follow him on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/TheFutbolJoker

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Edited by Jake Flock