The 15 players who have made the Ballon d’Or podium ahead of Salah since 2018
Mohamed Salah has undoubtedly been one of the best players in the Premier League, if not all of Europe, since he joined Liverpool back in 2017. But in that time he’s somehow never been voted in the top three of the Ballon d’Or.
Liverpool’s Egyptian King is the current frontrunner to claim the award in 2025. No matter what happens for the rest of the season, he’ll surely be in the top three later this year – unless he continues to get criminally overlooked.
Here are the 15 players that have made the Ballon d’Or podium since Salah joined Liverpool.
Luka Modric
What a year 2018 was for Modric.
He won a fourth (of six!) Champions League with Real Madrid in Kyiv, and a few weeks later he started in a World Cup final, having dragged underdogs Croatia to the Luzhniki in Moscow.
“As a kid, we all have dreams,” said the legendary playmaker in his acceptance speech.
“My dream was to play for a big club, to win important trophies. I dreamed about it, but the Ballon d’Or was more than a childhood dream for me and it’s a real honour and a privilege to hold this trophy.”
Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo’s prime years of Ballon d’Or dominance coincided with Salah’s time on the periphery at Chelsea and subsequent years in Italy.
The Real Madrid icon had won his fifth and final golden ball a few months after Salah joined Liverpool. He did win a third successive Champions League, at Liverpool’s expense, in 2018 – but that year he missed out to Modric after the starring role his former Los Blancos team-mate played in Croatia’s run to the World Cup final.
After his runner-up placing in 2018, Ronaldo came third the following year but he hasn’t made it onto the podium since. All downhill since he left Madrid.
Antoine Griezmann
Salah’s debut season at Anfield was absolutely ridiculous. He broke the goalscoring record for a 38-game Premier League season and notched a career-best tally of 44 goals and 14 assists in all competitions.
The Egyptian ended up fifth in the Ballon d’Or votes that year, a joint-best placing he matched after Liverpool got their hands on the Champions League the following year.
Ultimately, Salah’s sensational exploits in 2017-18 failed to yield any silverware. He was also unfortunate that his superb club campaign was somewhat overshadowed in a World Cup year, in which Griezmann shone in France’s World Cup triumph in Russia.
Lionel Messi
Salah won the Champions League with Liverpool in 2019 – but it was Messi, humbled at Anfield, who picked up his sixth Ballon d’Or that year.
In fairness, the Liverpool vote would’ve been split between a number of excellent individuals. And Messi’s numbers were outrageous in Barcelona’s 2018-19 La Liga title victory, having notched 31 goals and 18 assists.
Messi subsequently picked up his seventh in 2021 after Argentina’s Copa America victory and his eighth after the World Cup in 2023.
READ: The 10 players with the most goals + assists in a major European league season since 2000
Virgil Van Dijk
As above, there were a number of brilliant individuals in Liverpool’s 2018-19 season, in which they notched 97 points in the Premier League (and didn’t win the title!) and won the Champions League.
It was a bit of a Bayern 2012-13 season, or Spain in 2010. All about the collective effort, so it was no major surprise that the individual award went elsewhere.
But of Jurgen Klopp’s brilliant Reds team, it was Van Dijk that ranked highest in the Ballon d’Or vote. The Dutchman ended up finishing runner-up to Messi, having played a totemic role in Liverpool’s 2-0 Champions League final victory over Tottenham.
“I was slightly disappointed,” Van Dijk told reporters at the ceremony.
“I decided I would still go to the ceremony – and, in the end, it was a super night. I still consider it a great achievement to be up there with the biggest football icons in the world.”
“I spoke to Messi during the evening. It was not the longest conversation because he doesn’t speak a lot of English. But it was still enough to make me realise that the respect between us now also runs the other way.”
Robert Lewandowski
Believe it or not, but Lewandowski has only finished on the Ballon d’Or podium once in his wildly prolific, trophy-laden career.
Poland’s all-time top goalscorer finished runner-up to Messi in 2021. But he was robbed of the award when France football cancelled the Ballon d’Or in 2020 after the coronavirus pandemic. He was the only serious candidate that year, having fired Bayern to the treble with an insane tally of 55 goals in all competitions.
“Robert, you deserve your Ballon d’Or. Last year, everyone was in agreement to say that you were the big winner of this award,” Messi said in his speech.
Salah, too, might’ve had a shout for a podium placing had the Ballon d’Or taken place in 2020, given he was Liverpool’s top scorer in their emphatic 2019-20 Premier League title victory.
Jorginho
Third place in 2021 was Jorginho.
It feels wild that the midfielder is among an exclusive club of Premier League players to make the Ballon d’Or podium and Salah isn’t, but in fairness he had a brilliant 2021.
Jorginho was outstanding as Chelsea won the Champions League and Italy won the Euros that summer. Not many have achieved that double.
Karim Benzema
There can be no questioning Benzema’s 2022 Ballon d’Or.
The Frenchman was Real Madrid’s talisman when they won a La Liga and Champions League double that year. Unbelievably good.
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Sadio Mane
The 2021-22 campaign ultimately turned out a tad disappointing for Liverpool. They won two trophies but missed out on the ones they really coveted, narrowly missing out on the Premier League and Champions League by the finest of margins.
As with other seasons in the Klopp era, a number of Liverpool’s players performed to a very high standard that year. But it was Mane who placed highest on the Ballon d’Or podium, ending up runner-up to King Karim.
The clincher was probably his performances on the international stage, Senegal’s inspirational figure in their first-ever Africa Cup Of Nations. Fine margins, though; Salah might have taken his place on the podium had Egypt come out on top in the AFCON final’s penalty shootout.
Kevin De Bruyne
Manchester City pipped Liverpool to the Premier League title in 2021-22. Salah and Son Heung-min shared the Golden Boot but De Bruyne was named Player of the Season, having once again shone for Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering juggernaut.
The brilliant Belgian has been the Premier League’s standout player alongside Salah over the past decade or so.
It’s only right that his quality has been recognised with at least one Ballon d’Or podium placing – coming third behind Benzema and Mane in 2021-22.
Erling Haaland
The Norwegian broke the Premier League record with 36 goals in his debut 2022-23 season for Manchester City and notched 52 goals in all competitions, winning the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League.
In almost any other year, that would have been enough to win a Ballon d’Or. Unfortunately for Haaland, that was the year of Messi’s World Cup exploits out in Qatar.
“Haaland and [Kylian] Mbappe will win the Ballon d’Or one day,” said Messi after claiming a record-extending eighth golden ball.
“Erling deserved it very much too, he has won the Premier League, and Champions League while being the top scorer of everything. This award could have been yours today too. I’m sure in the next years you will win it.”
Kylian Mbappe
The Frenchman scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final – but it wasn’t even enough to win that (crazy, delirious) game, let alone the Ballon d’Or.
Had Les Bleus won the penalty shootout against Argentina in Qatar, securing what would’ve been a second successive World Cup, he might well have claimed his first golden ball. Fine margins.
Surprisingly enough, that’s the only Ballon d’Or podium placing of the 26-year-old’s career to date. You imagine that’ll change in the coming years at Real Madrid.
Rodri
“I want to mention my team-mates with whom I won the Euro title with, especially Dani Carvajal who suffered the same injury that I suffered,” the Manchester City said in his Ballon d’Or acceptance speech back in October.
“Lamine Yamal, I know you will win this award soon. This is a victory for Spanish football and many of my friends have written to me to say, ‘FOOTBALL HAS WON TODAY!”
Real Madrid begged to differ.
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Vinicius Junior
Rio Ferdinand went into some kind of trance and couldn’t stop repeating the words ‘Ballon d’Or’ from the commentary box when Vinicius Junior capped off his excellent 2023-24 campaign with a goal in the Champions League final.
But it wasn’t to be. No shame in coming second.
Jude Bellingham
“I’m not really too fussed about it,” the England international responded when asked about the prospect of winning a Ballon d’Or
“I always felt that those awards were like for strikers and wingers, the flashy players. I know I can entertain the crowd but no one can do it like Vini. When he is at his best, he’s the best player in the world.”
A healthy attitude, that. Still, Bellingham was well worthy of his place on the podium, ending up third in the Ballon d’Or vote after his stellar debut season at the Bernabeu.