Croatian midfield maestro, Luka Modric has won the 2018 Ballon D’Or beating off competition fromCristiano Ronaldo, Antoine Griezmann and Lionel Messi. Modric victory has put an end to a decade of Ronaldo and Messy triumphs.
The Real Madrid midfielder played a pivotal role for his club as they stormed to a third consecutive Champions League title, as well as captaining Croatia to second place at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Croatian midfield maestro, Luka Modric has won the 2018 Ballon D’Or beating off competition from the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Antoine Griezmann and Lionel Messi to be named the winner of 2018’s Ballon d’Or. Modric victory has put an end to a decade of Ronaldo and Messy triumphs.
With France having won the World Cup, Griezmann, Kylian Mbappe and even Modric’s fellow Madrid team-mate Raphael Varane had been amongst the favourites alongside the evergreen duo of Ronaldo and Messi.
However, the Croatian’s exploits across the year – which included being awarded the Golden Ball at the World Cup – have seem him emerge ahead of the rest of the pack.
Indeed, Modric has become the first player to break Messi and Ronaldo’s duopoly of the award since 2007, with Brazil icon Kaka being the last to lift the trophy before the Argentine and Portuguese stars collected five each across the following years.
Modric, 33, is the first Croatian to win the Ballon d’Or; his countryman Davor Suker is the only other Croatian player ever to finish in the top three, in 1998.
Power clubs once again dominated: every member of the final shortlist of 30 players is employed by a team in the top division in England, Spain, Italy or France. Real Madrid has eight players among the final 30, for example, while Liverpool placed four and Barcelona, Paris St.-Germain and Atlético Madrid three each.
Modric is the seventh player from Real Madrid to lift the trophy, breaking a tie with Barcelona players. (Counting multiple winners, each club now has won 11 times over all, another record.) That may serve as a bit of consolation in Madrid after a summer in which the club sold Ronaldo to Italy’s Juventus.
Modric’s victory capped a remarkable 2018 — he won his fourth Champions League crown with Real Madrid and led Croatia to its first World Cup final — but it was not a surprise: He already had been honored this fall as European Footballer of the Year by UEFA, the continent’s governing body, and in September he beat Ronaldo and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah in voting for FIFA World Player of the Year , ending a similar run of Ronaldo-Messi dominance.
Before the big Modric reveal, Norway’s Ada Hegerberg, a 23-year-old striker who plays for Olympique Lyon, won the first women’s Ballon d’Or.
