5 players who lost out on the Ballon d'Or by the smallest of margins
Most years, the winner of the Ballon d’Or wins by a very comfortable margin. But sometimes the results after the votes have been counted can be pretty close. On such occasions, you can only feel sorry for the runner-up.Here is a look at five years when the Ballon d’Or winner was decided by a small margin of victory.Note: Before the Ballon d’Or became the FIFA Ballon d’Or, the polls were based on points. The voters picked five choices where the first got 5 points, the second got 4 points, third 3 points, fourth 2 points and the fifth choice got 1 point. Later, instead of points, a percentage system was used.
#1 2000: Zinedine Zidane loses to Luis Figo
The competition for the award in 2000 was between two friends who are also among the greatest in the history of the game. During this period, Figo made his controversial switch from Barcelona to Real Madrid and Zidane was still a Juventus player.
Figo won the award with 197 points narrowly beating Zidane who had 181 points. Upon receiving the award, Figo became the second Portuguese player to win it after Eusebio (1965) and the third Real Madrid player to win it – the first for a Los Blancos player since 1959.
Figo and Zidane later became teammates at Real Madrid and were part of their famous Galacticos team of the early 2000s. Although Zidane didn’t win the award in 2000, he had previously won it in 1998.