Not Another One?! Barcelona Legend Lionel Messi Takes Home Yet Another Award After Ballon d’Or Snub

Not Another One?! Barcelona Legend Lionel Messi Takes Home Yet Another Award After Ballon d’Or Snub
16:39, 02 Jan 2019

Greatest Player of All Time?

The argument that will never be conclusively ended but Lionel Messi can take yet another accolade away after the Barcelona star was awarded the Number One position in Marca’s Top 100 Players of 2018.

The Argentine had to recently suffer the indignation of astonishingly finishing fifth in France Football’s prestigious Ballon d’Or.

Real Madrid’s Luka Modric took home the award at the beginning of December after a stunning year when he helped take Croatia to their best ever finish at a World Cup.

The midfield dynamo also picked up his fourth Champions League medal after being part of the Real Madrid side that saw off Liverpool in Kiev and subsequently broke the duopoly of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo that has seen them share the Ballon d’Or over the past decade.

Messi, a five-time Ballon d’Or recipient scored an incredible 47 goals in 48 games in 2018, the highest tally of any player in Europe’s top five divisions (Serie A, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, La Liga, Premier League) and is a worthy winner of Marca’s accolade. Messi was instrumental in helping Barca to achieve and league and cup double for the 2017/18 season.

Also getting into the top 10 of Marca’s list were World Cup winners Antoine Griezmann (3rd) and Kylian Mbappe (5th)

The highest rated Premier League player was Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (6th), who was accompanied by Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne (10th) in representing the English top tier in the top ten.

The list was dominated by attack-minded players, with only France and Real’s Raphael Varane (8th) the only defender to slot into a top-ten position.

You can check out who Marca deemed the best players of 2018 below.

1. Lionel Messi

2. Luka Modric

3. Antoine Griezmann

4. Cristiano Ronaldo

5. Kylian Mbappé

6. Mohamed Salah

7. Eden Hazard

8. Raphael Varane

9. Harry Kane

10. Kevin De Bruyne

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