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Cristiano Ronaldo Believes Mohamed Salah Should Win Ballon D'Or Over Him And Lionel Messi

Cristiano Ronaldo Believes Mohamed Salah Should Win Ballon D'Or Over Him And Lionel Messi

Cristiano Ronaldo has shown great humility here.

Macaulay Fletcher

Macaulay Fletcher

Cristiano Ronaldo has tipped Mohamed Salah to beat him and Lionel Messi to the Ballon d'Or this year.

Ronaldo and Messi have dominated the award for over a decade now, winning five each. In fact, it's getting a little boring now for everyone. We're crying out for a new player to step in and take over the reins.

The last player to win the award outside of Ronaldo and Messi was former Real Madrid and AC Milan player Kaka. He won the Ballon d'Or in Italy before his career tailed off slightly in Spain; at Real, Kaka was in and out of form, and soon returned to Milan for a spell, before heading back to Brazil to play for Sao Paulo. He remains one of the greatest players to never realise his full potential.

Kaka Ronaldo
Kaka Ronaldo

And now it seems that Salah could be only the third player to win the award in eleven years.

"Mo Salah has been one of the revelations of the year," a humble Ronaldo said via the Mirror.

"I hope his injury in the final in Kiev doesn't keep him out.

salah
salah

"Many people talk about the Cristiano Ronaldo-Messi battle but there are other players who have chances to enter the race (for Ballon d'Or). The Egyptian is one of them."

What more can be said about Salah? We're running out of superlatives to describe the Egyptian King. His 44 goals across all campaigns for Liverpool couldn't have been foreseen by anyone. All eyes will be on the 25-year-old at the World Cup this summer. He has turned his national side into dark horses.

On Friday, Portugal face neighbours Spain in their opening group stage game at the World Cup and the Real Madrid star says it's not the best way to start the tournament for his side: "It's not ideal but the draw has given us this tie and we have to accept it," Ronaldo said.

"A defeat on the first day puts your in a bad way for the rest of the tournament so it's important to start well. But I believe both Spain and Portugal will reach the next round."

The two European teams have Iran and Morocco in their group and so anything other than qualification to the group stages would be seen as a major disappointment.

Question is, who will sit top of the group? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

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