Pele Sends Message To Cristiano Ronaldo After Ballon d'Or Win

Cristiano Ronaldo further cemented his reputation as one of the greatest footballers of all time, last night when he lifted a record equalling fifth Ballon d'Or, during an awards ceremony in Paris.

The Portugal captain, who also secured his second consecutive FIFA The Best award this year, as well, has enjoyed yet another trophy laden 12 months, with another Champions League and La Liga being won with Real Madrid.

And not long after the announcement was made of Ronaldo's victory, the congratulatory messages started rolling in. And one was more notable than the others.

It came from the official Twitter account of Pele, who told the five time winner how much he would have loved to line up alongside him during his own playing days.

The message read, "Congratulations to @Cristiano on winning this year's Ballon d'Or. I would love to have played on the same side as you!"

Being Brazilian, Pele was never eligible to win the Ballon d'Or during his career as the award was designated only for European players originally, although he has since been retroactively honoured with special Ballon d'Or awards in recent years as well as being named FIFA's Player of The 20th Century. Not bad for a player who counts goals he scored in dreams towards his career total.

Topics: Football News, Football, Ballon d'Or, Pele, Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid

Joe Baiamonte

Northerner. Assistant Editor of SPORTbible. Studied Journalism and Broadcasting in a portakabin on a car park of Salford University for three years. Believes football peaked with Serie A in the '90s and strong-arms pro wrestling references into as many articles as possible. Neymar once took 50 euros off me during a game of poker.

@JoeBaia