Opinion: Why Cristiano Ronaldo will win the 2018 Ballon d'Or
Cristiano Ronaldo has once more defied all the odds and has had another successful season at the age of 33. He even managed to lead Real Madrid to their third consecutive UEFA Champions League victory. He managed to secure third place in La Liga with Real Madrid and also took Portugal to the round of sixteen of the FIFA World Cup.
Ronaldo managed to get 26 goals and five assists in La Liga, 15 goals and three assists in UCL and four goals in the World Cup. He has now also managed to score seven times and assist four times for his new club Juventus in the Serie A.
The top four candidates for the Ballon d'Or this year are Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric, Mohamed Salah and Lionel Messi. The award will be given to the player who had performed well in all the three big competitions. While Luka Modric had the best world cup leading Croatia to the finals, Ronaldo had the best UCL as the winner, and top scorer and Messi had the best league season as the winner, top goal scorer and top assist provider. Salah was the second best league player and probably the third best Champions League player after Ronaldo and Modric.
While Salah and Modric have had a quiet start to the 2018-19 season, both Messi and Ronaldo have once more began their season with flair. Ronaldo may have started the last season with a goal drought but that period of the season was considered for the 2017 Ballon d'Or. Since the period of consideration of the 2018 Ballon d'Or has started Ronaldo has been phenomenal and consistent in all the competitions.
The Ballon d'Or committee is probably going to consider the player's previous career achievements for giving him the award. That gives both Messi and Ronaldo the upper hand over others to win this award because of their glorious career in which both of them have won the Ballon d'Or five times.
Cristiano Ronaldo's consistency in every competition he plays and for every team he plays for along with his lustrous career makes him the favourite to win the Ballon d'Or for the sixth time which will make him the player with the most number of golden balls and establish his legacy as the greatest footballer of all time.