5 reasons why moving to Barcelona will make Philippe Coutinho a Ballon d'Or contender

The football world’s most prestigious award for an individual player, the Ballon d’Or has been the primary way to decide the world’s best player in a year since 2007, when the award became open for any player in the world to win.

Unsurprisingly, since 2008, the award has been absolutely dominated by two men – Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. No other player has broken their monopoly since, but given that monopoly has lasted ten years now, it could be about to change.

One player who might have a good chance of breaking that domination is Philippe Coutinho. And his recent move to Barcelona might help him tremendously in his quest for the Ballon d’Or. Here are five reasons why.

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#5 The Ballon d’Or dominance of Barca

Ronaldinho won the Ballon d'Or with Barca in 2005

While Coutinho used to ply his trade at one of England’s biggest clubs – and Europe’s most successful too – in Liverpool, even the most hardcore fans of the Reds would probably admit that right now, they’re simply not as big a club as Barcelona.

That’s why Barca could afford to pay so much for Coutinho, after all. But that discrepancy doesn’t only exist in terms of size, it also exists in terms of history, especially when it comes to the Ballon d’Or.

Barcelona are top of the table when it comes to which club has produced the most Ballon d’Or winners – eleven times the Ballon d'Or winners have been produced by the Nou Camp, and while their closest rivals Real Madrid are in second place with ten wins, Liverpool are way down the list – only one player from Anfield has ever won the award and that was striker Michael Owen way back in 2001, after a season that saw Liverpool win three trophies.

Obviously Lionel Messi accounts for many of Barca’s Ballon d’Or wins – 5 of them in fact, more than any other player – but that still leaves five other Barca players who won the award.

The first was Luis Suarez – a namesake of the Uruguayan striker – back in 1960, and the most recent pre-Messi winner was Ronaldinho in 2005. Simply put, the Ballon d’Or is synonymous with Barcelona and hence Coutinho has a bigger chance of winning it now that he’s moved there.

#4 The winner often comes from a Champions League winning side

Coutinho's chances of winning the Champions League are better with Barca

If you look back at the list of Ballon d’Or winners, one fact immediately springs to mind and that’s that the winner – particularly in the pre-Messi-Ronaldo era – usually comes from the side that wins that season’s Champions League.

Ronaldo’s first win in 2008 came after he’d won the UCL with Manchester United, Kaka won it in 2007 after winning it with Milan, Marco Van Basten in 1989 after winning it with Milan, and so forth.

Champions League runners-up have also produced plenty of Ballon d’Or winners, too – Zinedine Zidane of Juventus in 1998, Hristo Stoichkov of Barcelona in 1994, Pavel Nedved of Juventus in 2003, and so on.

And simply put – no offence to Liverpool – Barcelona have a much higher chance of winning the Champions League than Coutinho’s former club. This means in turn that the Brazilian wizard has a higher chance of taking the Ballon d’Or himself.

The other way for a player to win the Ballon d’Or tends to be through his international performances – particularly in years that there’s a big international tournament like the World Cup or the European Championships.

Matthias Sammer and Fabio Cannavaro both won the Ballon d’Or after starring at international level. And with 2018 being a World Cup year and Brazil amongst the favourites to win it – with Coutinho starring for them – well, you do the math.

#3 He’ll be playing against weaker sides a lot and will look better

Playing against weaker sides like Malaga will make Coutinho look even better

It’s an argument that plenty of people have made in the past, but it still rings true – La Liga is simply a weaker league overall than the Premier League.

That obviously doesn’t mean that sides like Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid are worse than the cream of the Premier League crop, but it does mean that lower-table sides in Spain such as Levante and Malaga probably aren’t as strong as lower English sides like Swansea or West Bromwich Albion.

The reason for this isn’t necessarily because they’re outright weaker – it’s more to do with La Liga’s head-to-head rule, which means results between two sides, rather than overall goal difference, is used to separate sides on the same points.

So basically, it matters not whether a smaller side loses 1-0 or 7-0 to Barcelona. This means that for a player like Coutinho, a lot more easier games should be on the horizon which should allow him to shine even more.

Look at Cristiano Ronaldo and the impact that moving to Spain did for his career, for instance – while he has improved as a player since moving to Madrid, his league goal average has increased at a ludicrous rate – from averaging 22 a season in his last three years at Manchester United, to 35 a season at Real.

La Liga will allow Coutinho’s talents to shine through even brighter than they did in the Premier League thanks to the lesser competition, giving him a better chance at the Ballon d’Or in turn.

#2 Messi and Ronaldo are fading

Could Coutinho eventually replace Lionel Messi in the Ballon d'Or standings?

Nobody is saying that either man is going to end their career anytime soon, but only a fool would deny that the years of domination from Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are probably coming to an end.

They’ve dominated world football now for a decade – in terms of winning the Ballon d’Or included – but for the first time in a long time, 2017/18 seems to be seeing players other than those two greats shining brightly.

The likes of Mohamed Salah, Harry Kane, Neymar Jr and of course, Philippe Coutinho, are performing at an extraordinarily high level right now and suddenly the gap between Ronaldo, Messi and everyone else appears to be closing.

Ronaldo has just 18 goals thus far this season – far behind his usual lofty standards – and his Real Madrid future is said to be extremely doubtful right now.

Messi is looking as good as ever, admittedly, but even if he wins this year’s Ballon d’Or, at 30 how many more great seasons does he really have in him? And when the two greats do begin to wind down, the Ballon d’Or is there for the taking.

Not only could a player of Coutinho’s skill help to replace Messi at Barca, but he could also replace him in the standings of the famous award, too.

#1 He should be Barca’s main man

Coutinho could be Barca's main man for years to come

As was touched upon in the previous slide, while Lionel Messi remains the superstar for Barcelona right now, at age 30 he won’t go on forever. But strangely enough, the same could be said for a lot of Barca’s best players.

Andres Iniesta, one of the most iconic players to pull on a Barca shirt is now 33; Gerard Pique is 30 and even Luis Suarez is no spring chicken, as he turns 31 this week. And so Coutinho, at just 25 years old, has clearly been signed with the future firmly in mind.

In this surprisingly ageing Barcelona squad then, Coutinho stands out as the man who should see the team built around him for the next few seasons at least. French forward Ousmane Dembele – who cost Barca a huge £100m+ fee in the summer – is just 20, but he isn’t the finished product yet and has been suffering with injury problems.

Sure, Barca could easily sign another superstar or two, but the money they paid for Coutinho suggests they want him as their main man.

This is actually a contrast to Liverpool, where Coutinho could be argued as being behind Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane in the pecking order of most important players.

Now he’s suddenly the main man in the squad – or will be in little time at all – the likelihood of Coutinho winning the Ballon d’Or rises massively. After all, it’s usually a successful team’s biggest star who wins the award.