Ballon d'Or 2018: 6 players who should have been nominated

#3 Ciro Immobile

Ciro Immobile

The 28-year-old is the talisman for Lazio, and arguably the single most important player in determining his club's fortunes across Europe, as whenever Lazio scores a goal, more often than not, Immobile has a hand in it either directly or indirectly by setting his teammate up.

After being something of a journeyman in the early part of this decade, cutting across spells including Sevilla, Dortmund, Torino and Genoa, the Italian international finally found his in the blue part of Rome when he joined Lazio in 2016.

At the Stadio Olimpico, Immobile has been transformed into one of the most lethal finishers in the world, scoring 26 goals across all competitions in his debut season with the club, before taking his goalscoring to an entirely different height with his performance last season.

The Annunziata native scored a whopping 41 goals in 47 appearances last season across all competitions, which was just three fewer than Ballon d'Or forerunners Salah and Ronaldo got.

In addition, he won the Italian Golden Boot jointly with Mauro Icardi, as his 29 league goals were more than anyone else in Serie A, while also contributing 8 goals in 9 appearances on the continent, as the Biancocelesti made it to the quarter-finals of the Europa League.

Immobile's creativity also came to the fore, as he registered a total of 11 assists, to help Lazio finished in 5th place, where they narrowly lost out on a Champions League spot to Inter Milan, finishing level on points but edged out by an inferior head to head.

This season, Immobile has started from where he left off, already scoring 6 goals, including 5 in the league, and on evidence of his displays last season, it is shambolic that he was not included among the nominees for the 2018 Ballon d'Or.