France Football, a french weekly magazine that awards the Ballon d’Or Award, released the list of 30 players nominated for the 2022 Men’s Ballon d’Or Award. The list had some notable exclusions with 7-time award winner, Lionel Messi failing to make the cut. This is the first time since 2005 that Messi does not feature in the top-30. 

Since 1956, the French news magazine France Football has presented the Ballon d’Or. From 2010 to 2015, in an agreement with FIFA, the award was merged with FIFA World Player of the Year. That partnership ended in 2016, and the award was renamed the Ballon d’Or, while FIFA established its own annual award, The Best FIFA Men’s Player. 

Also Read: UEFA announces Men’s Player of the Year nominees, Mohammad Salah misses out

The nominees for the 2022 edition of the award feature some notable names in Cristiano Ronaldo, Erling Haaland and Karima Benzema while PSG teammates Neymar and Messi were not in the top 30.  Messi won the award last year but endured a difficult debut season at PSG since making the move from Barcelona. This year’s winners of the award are scheduled to be announced on 17th October.

Liverpool leads the list with the most number of nominated players with 7, followed by Manchester City with 6 and Real Madrid with 5.

Here are the 30 players in the list, in order of their positions (from GK to Striker): –

GOALKEEPERS-

1) Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid)

2) Mike Maignan (AC Milan)

DEFENDERS-

1) Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool)

2) Antonio Rüdiger (Real Madrid)

3) Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)

4) Joao Cancelo (Manchester City)

Also Read: Real Madrid win UEFA Super Cup, Benzema now club’s second-highest scorer

MIDFIELDERS

1) Christopher Nkunku (RB Leipzig) 

2) Casemiro (Real Madrid)

3) Fabinho (Liverpool)

4) Phil Foden (Manchester City)

5) Luka Modric (Real Madrid)

6) Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City)

FORWARDS-

1) Rafael Leão (AC Milan)

2) Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)

3) Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich/Barcelona)

4) Karim Benzema (Real Madrid)

5) Sadio Mane (Liverpool)

6) Erling Haaland (Borussia Dortmund/Manchester City)

7) Kylian Mbappe (PSG)

8) Dušan Vlahović (Juventus)

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9) Sebastian Haller (Dortmund)

10) Luis Díaz (Liverpool)

11) Christopher Nkunku (RB Leipzig)

12) Rafael Leão (AC Milan)

13) Darwin Núñez (Liverpool)

14) Harry Kane (Tottenham)

15) Heung-Min Son (Tottenham)

16) Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City)

17) Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)

18) Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)