Midfielders who should have won the Ballon D’Or but surprisingly lost

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Luka Modric was named the world’s best male player at the Best Fifa Football Awards in London.

The Real Madrid midfielder, 33, beat former team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo, now with Juventus, and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah to the award. Modric won his third Champions League title in a row in May and guided Croatia to their first World Cup final in July.

Regarded as one of the best midfield players of his generation, Modric ended the Messi-Ronaldo dominance that has seen the award go to either of the two players in the past 10 years. The midfielder a;so becomes the first midfielder to win the award since Kaka in 2007. below we look at other midfielders who deserved to win the award but did not…

Andres Iniesta

The Barcelona legend is undoubtedly one of the best midfielders the world has ever seen and it’s a pity that he never won the Ballon d’Or. He has won 9 La Liga titles, 7 Spanish Super Cups, 6 Copa del Rey trophies, 4 Champions Leagues titles, 3 European Super Cups and 3 Club World Cups with Blaugrana.

The 2010 Ballon d’Or should have gone to Iniesta without anyone even coming close but somehow, it was given to Lionel Messi instead. The midfielder had won the World Cup and La Liga that season, made it to the FIFPro and UEFA team of the year but still finished 2nd with just 17.36% of the votes in the race for Ballon d’Or.

Ngolo Kante

N’Golo Kante won back-to-back Premier League titles with two different teams and was pivotal for both. Chelsea and Leicester City will be forever grateful to the Frenchman for his unmatched performances.

His commitment in the midfield allowed both teams to dominate the opponents despite having just two men in the centre of the pitch. He was shuttling from box-to-box and intercepting almost all the balls that were going past him.

If doing the job of two players on the pitch and winning the league for his side isn’t enough to get the Ballon d’Or, then it’s difficult to understand what is.
Toni Kroos

We won’t pay you more than €10 million a year because you’re not a world-class player.’ – that is exactly what Bayern Munich CEO, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told when he was in talks to renew his contract at the German club.

A couple of months later, he was sold to Real Madrid for €25 million – what is being called as the bargain of the century by several football fans. Pep Guardiola also did not show enough faith in him and was often preferring Mario Gotze over him.

With 3 Champions League titles in 4 years at Real Madrid , one cannot argue that he is not a world-class player. Had it not been for the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly in the Ballon d’Or, Kroos would have won the trophy in 2014 – as he had won every major title in

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