The Ballon d’Or 2016 winner will be announced on Monday night in Paris. While there is a list of 30 players from which the winner will be chosen, it is highly likely that the winner will be one of these four – Antoine Griezmann, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi or Luis Suarez. After all, these are the four players who stood out from the pack based on their goal-scoring exploits for club and country.
Messi and Ronaldo have dominated the FIFA Ballon d’Or for the past 8 years, having shared all the awards between them during this period. However, until the winner is disclosed by France Football on Monday night, we will account for each player to be in contention for the highly prestigious award as SK does a live blog on the low key Ballon d’Or ceremony to be conducted in Paris.
Also, Read: Ballon d'Or 2016 Award Live Ceremony
Sportskeeda’s in-house experts made their picks for the winner of this prestigious award. Let us take a look at those predictions:
Amartojit Basu (Twitter: @amartojitbasu)
Cristiano Ronaldo should win the Ballon d'Or because Cristiano Ronaldo is more than goals and assists. He is inspiration personified, he is the will to win, he is desire, commitment and he is ambition. Such trophies should not exist, but if you're handing them out, might as well give them to the person who works harder than anyone else for himself and the team.
Ballon d'Or 2016 winner: Cristiano Ronaldo
Rohith Nair (Twitter: @rohithnair)
If trophies were the primary factor to decide the Ballon d'Or winner, Franck Ribery would have felt very hard done by in 2013 when he came third after winning the treble with Bayern Munich while Cristiano Ronaldo (who had won nothing) took home the award.
Portugal were lucky to win Euro 2016 - a shoddy tournament format that rewarded mediocrity - while the Champions League final could have gone either way in the shootout, although Ronaldo did finish as top scorer.
However, my choice would be Luis Suarez simply because he stepped up a number of times - when Messi was injured and when Barcelona's La Liga campaign was almost derailed in April. 59 goals & 22 assists in all competitions (and the Pichichi to boot). El Pistolero deserves to break the duopoly.
Ballon d'Or 2016 winner: Luis Suarez
Anirudh Menon (Twitter: @animenon19)
Cristiano Ronaldo is the man of the year. A third Champions League trophy and a Euro trophy (a first ever success for Portugal) are merely the cherries on top of the cake that the man has dedicated his life to baking.
Luis Suarez is arguably the guy who gives him the toughest competition for me, but unfortunately, I can't see the great man win it ahead of a fully functioning Ronaldo or Messi. Cruel, but that's the lay of the land I suppose.
You know what would completely blow the internet’s collective mind, though? If Leicester City’s brilliant Riyad Mahrez does what no one expects him to do and win the whole shebang!
Ballon d'Or 2016 winner: Cristiano Ronaldo
Ashwin Hanagudu (Twitter: @ashw77)
My pick for the Ballon d'Or award is Barcelona's number 9, Luis Suarez. While the endless debate between Ronaldo and Messi rages on, the player who arguably outperformed them last season was the mercurial Uruguayan.
Winner of the Golden Shoe and arguably the best striker in the world, Suarez is often viewed with a different perspective thanks to his past demeanours. And it is this which will cost him the award.
For the winner, it is hard to look past the Euro and Champions League winner, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ballon d'Or 2016 winner: Cristiano Ronaldo
Soumalya Moitra (Twitter: @soumalyamoitra7)
It is difficult to look past Cristiano Ronaldo this year. Being a team sport, individual awards are something of a nightmare to decide upon, as things become more qualitative than quantitative. But given the fact he has won the Champions League and Euros, and his contribution to the cause, he's as clear a winner as Donald Trump the next US President.
Ballon d'Or 2016 winner: Cristiano Ronaldo
Rohit Vishwanathan
Cristiano Ronaldo has been amongst the goals this season after a slow start. Both him and Messi were accused of not having international success, a jinx he broke this year at the Euro 2016. That coupled with the Champions League win makes him my favourite for the Ballon d'Or.
Ballon d'Or 2016 winner: Cristiano Ronaldo
Sripad Kilikar (Twitter: @falsewinger)
Cristiano Ronaldo has literally done it all to deserve it this time. Messi is still the best player in the world for me but 2016 has been the year of the Real Madrid superstar. Many might argue that Ronaldo didn't do much in the Euro 2016 final but a player’s performance throughout the year is what we are supposed to look at, not just the finals.
Ballon d'Or 2016 winner: Cristiano Ronaldo
Shaurya Vineet (Twitter: @shauryavineet)
Cristiano Ronaldo is definitely the overwhelming favourite ahead of tomorrow’s announcement and while it is hard to argue against him, Lionel Messi stands tall and deserves it as much as the Portuguese if not more.
The diminutive Argentine failed to win his national team a major honour for the third consecutive year, having rallied them to the final of the tournament on all three occasions. But as put forth by those before me, the award is handed out to a person for his performance throughout the year and not just in the finals. And this is where Messi trumps Ronaldo, Suarez and everyone else.
Messi failed to win the Copa America Centenario but he was the reason Argentina reached the finals. Messi failed to win the UEFA Champions League but he still won the La Liga, Copa del Rey, FIFA Club World Cup and the UEFA Super Cup with Barcelona during the 2015/16 season, and currently leads the goal-scoring charts of both La Liga and UEFA Champions League.
While all of Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez and Griezmann are once in a lifetime players, it is Messi who is the most under-appreciated. To put it in simpler words – his goal-scoring exploits are so momentous that people fail to look at the other aspects of the game that have put him on a pedestal unlike anyone else. Be it is silky-smooth first touch, his effortless dribbling, his jack-hammer of a left-foot capable of caressing the ball past the keeper or simply blasting it into the top corner, he's got it all covered.
Now, Messi may not have the Champions League or the Euro 2016 glory to his credit but what he does have is the ability to make a 9-year-old fall in love with the ‘Beautiful Game’ due to his effervescent style of play. I have often been accused of being an inveterate Messi lover, but that is because he brings so much to the game that the others fail to.
He might not win the Ballon d’Or tomorrow night ahead of Ronaldo or Suarez but for me, he will always be capable of fabricating magic on the football field that even the best magicians fail to do. For me, he will always be the greatest there was, there is and ever will be to grace the beautiful game.
Ballon d'Or 2016 winner: Lionel Messi
As is clearly visible Cristiano Ronaldo is the odds-on favourite to win the prestigious award tonight during the announcement, having won 6 out of the 8 votes while Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi share one vote each. It will be interesting to see which of these actually lifts the award tonight.
Will Cristiano Ronaldo win his 4th Ballon d’Or, or will Messi win his 6th, or can Luis Suarez become the first man to break the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly? Follow our live coverage of the event to find out who reigns supreme.
