Ronaldo Makes Ballon d'Or Claim About Cristiano Ronaldo And Lionel Messi

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have dominated the football landscape for the past 10 years, winning the Ballon d'Or and its equivalent for the last decade. But Ronaldo doesn't think the pair would have won as many in his day.

Real Madrid becoming the first team to win the Champions League back to back and recapturing the Spanish La Liga title for the first time in five years pretty much guaranteed Cristiano Ronaldo would win the Ballon d'Or.

With the inevitable actually happening it means that he and Lionel Messi are tied on five awards each after 10 years where no one has come close to them in terms of sustained quality.

Cristiano shows off his five awards. Image: PA Images

In the decade before their dominance, between 1997 and 2007, only Ronaldo won the award twice, with Kaka, Fabio Cannavaro, Andriy Shevchenko, Pavel Nedved, Michael Owen, Luis Figo, Rivaldo and Zinedine Zidane all winning one each.

That list is quite the roll call of players from that era and possibly proved just how difficult the competition to win a Ballon d'Or was back then.

Speaking to Bild 'The Phenomenon' claimed that the two superstars of today wouldn't have won as many in his day, saying:

"In my generation, the competition was much bigger than it is now, without wanting to belittle Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. They will fight for the title of the best player in the world in the coming years, but in my time we had [Zinedine] Zidane, Rivaldo, [Luis] Figo, me, and then Ronaldinho.

"That was a generation in which being the best was much more difficult."

Ronaldo won the second of his awards in 2002. Image: PA Images.

It does feel somewhat like Ronaldo might have a point. At times the Ballon d'Or has felt less like a competition to decide the best player in the world and just to point out which of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi has won more that year.

Andres Iniesta, Wesley Sneijder and Manuel Neuer all arguably should have won the award during Messi and Ronaldo's dominance.

Messi looks lovingly at the award. Image: PA Images

It remains to be seen exactly when someone else will be able to take the title off one of these two incredible players but in a World Cup year there's certainly the chance for someone else to step up.

Do you agree with Ronaldo or would this pair have dominated 20 years ago too?

Topics: Lionel Messi, Ronaldo, Ballon d'Or, Cristiano Ronaldo

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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