Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo had been each left off the checklist of nominees for this 12 months’s Ballon d’Or award, marking the primary time neither star was nominated since 2003.
File eight-time winner Messi, and his longtime rival Ronaldo, who has 5 Ballon d’Ors to his identify, didn’t characteristic Wednesday in an inventory of 30 gamers within the operating for this 12 months’s prize, which will probably be offered Oct. 28.
Vinicius Junior, Rodri, Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland and Harry Kane are among the many names nominated.
Teammates Vinicius and Bellingham helped Actual Madrid win LaLiga and the membership’s sixteenth Champions League title final season, whereas Haaland led the Premier League in objectives scored and Kane did the identical for Bayern Munich within the Bundesliga.
Earlier this summer time, Mbappé lastly sealed his anticipated transfer to Madrid after spending six seasons at PSG.
Messi, who’s working his manner again from harm with membership facet Inter Miami, received the award final 12 months.
Messi, 37, received his first Ballon d’Or in 2009 — the beginning of a four-year streak of taking the highest prize. He was first nominated in 2006.
Ronaldo and Messi turned the competitors into an almost two-way contest throughout the peak of their careers — profitable it a mixed 13 instances from 2008.
Ronaldo’s first nomination was 2004.
On the ladies’s facet, 5 U.S. stars made the checklist of nominees, together with captain and midfielder Lindsey Horan, goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher and forwards Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson, a number of weeks after serving to the Individuals win the 2024 Olympic gold medal in girls’s soccer.
Aitana BonmatÃ, Mariona Caldentey, Patri Guijarro, Salma Paralluelo and Alexia Putellas are the 5 Spanish gamers nominated for the award. Spain completed fourth on the Olympics, one 12 months after profitable the World Cup. The award has gone to Spanish gamers in every of the previous three years, twice to Putellas and final 12 months to BonmatÃ.
England, overwhelmed by Spain within the 2023 World Cup closing, has three nominees — Lauren Hemp, Lauren James and Lucy Bronze.
Data from The Related Press contributed to this report.