The Croatian midfielder won the battle against Cristiano Ronaldo and Antoine Griezmann and was named the Best of the World amongst every Football Players.
Modric has won the UEFA Champions League with Real Madrid. He’s also got to the World Cup final with Croatia, losing to France 4-2 in the final. Not only did Modric win the Ballon d’Or, but he also ended the Messi-Ronaldo supremacy. He’s the first footballer in more than a decade to beat Ronaldo and Messi in the awards.
The last player who has done it, was the Brazilian midfielder Kaka, back in 2007, when he played for both Milan and Brazil.
Let’s take a look at how was the final classification of the awards:
1st – Luka Modric
2nd – Cristiano Ronaldo
3rd Antoine Griezmann
4th Kylian Mbappe
5th Lionel Messi
6th Mohamed Salah
7th Raphael Varane
8th Eden Hazard
9th Kevin De Bruyne
10th Harry Kane
11th N’Golo Kante
12th Neymar
13th Luis Suarez
14th Thibaut Courtois
15th Paul Pogba
16th Sergio Aguero
17th Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale
19th Sergio Ramos, Ivan Rakitic and Roberto Firmino
22nd Marcelo, Sadio Mane, and Edinson Cavani
25th Alisson Becker, Jan Oblak, and Mario Mandzukic
28th Diego Godin
29th Isco, and Hugo Lloris
But like… Did Modric really deserve that award? In my opinion, no. He made a good season, okay. But Salah was better than him. The whole Liverpool front-three were better than Modric. Messi and Ronaldo also performed better than the Croatian. So did Griezmann and Mbappe.
Modric took an advantage on the fact that he made it to the World Cup final with Croatia, but if you take a look on his performance in the World Cup, he wasn’t a decisive player. I would give him a 5th place. And maybe the award between Ronaldo, Salah and Mbappe.
However, Modric’s triumph was good for destroying the hegemony of Ronaldo and Messi. They are great players, but 10 years of them, straight away, it’s too much.
Anyways, I hope we will start noticing a new era in Football World! Congratulations Modric!