Ballon d’Or 2021: The 30-man shortlist has been announced

France Football magazine has officially announced the list of 30 nominees for the 2021 Ballon d’Or with many bright names.

Ballon d’Or 2021: The 30-man shortlist has been announced

The Ballon d’Or 2021 will be announced on October 29

After 1 year of cancellation due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ballon d’Or title will return in 2021. Last night, France Football magazine (France) officially announced a list of 30 nominations for individual awards. the most prestigious of world football.

Lionel Messi, Jorginho and Robert Lewandowski are the three most notable names appearing in France Football’s nomination list. In particular, Messi is considered the best candidate after winning the Copa America 2021 with the Argentina team.

With Jorginho, this is the star who has won both the two biggest titles in 2021, the Champions League and EURO 2020. At the beginning of the season, the Italian midfielder was awarded the best player in Europe by UEFA in 2021.

For his part, Lewandowski showed brilliant scoring form in both Bayern Munich and Poland. He was a leading candidate for the 2020 Ballon d’Or after a very successful season with Bayern but the award was canceled due to the pandemic.

With the 2020-21 Champions League victory, Chelsea is one of the two clubs with the most representatives in the list of 30 nominations for the Ballon d’Or 2021 (5 people). In addition to Jorginho, the West London team also has 4 other names: Cesar Azpilicueta, N’Golo Kante, Mason Mount and Romelu Lukaku. Man City also has 4 stars nominated by France Football: Kevin De Bruyne, Ruben Dias, Riyadh Mahrez, Phil Foden and Raheem Sterling.

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Besides, the list of nominees of France Football also has many other notable names such as Karim Benzema (Real Madrid), Bruno Fernandes, Cristiano Ronaldo (Man Utd), Erling Haaland (Dortmund), Harry Kane (Tottenham), Kylian Mbappe, Neymar (PSG), Luis Suarez (Atletico Madrid) or Mohamed Salah (Liverpool).

In addition to the Ballon d’Or for men, France Football also announced 20 nominations for the Women’s Ballon d’Or. Many big names such as Sam Keer, Pernille Harder, Vivianne Miedema, Jessie Fleming, Ashley Lawrence or Christine Sinclair are all present.

In the Best Young Player award (Kopa), France Football announced 10 nominations, including the most notable ones being Pedri, Saka and Bellingham. In the Best Goalkeeper award, Donnarumma and Edouard Mendy were rated as the two best candidates.

Nominated for Best Young Player (Kopa): Mason Greenwood, Bukayo Saka, Pedri, Jeremy Doku, Ryan Gravenberch, Jamal Musiala, Florian Wirtz, Jude Bellingham, Giovanni Reyna, Nuno Mendes.

Nominees for Best Goalkeeper (Yashin): Gianluigi Donnarumma, Ederson, Kasper Schmeichel, Edouard Mendy, Keylor Navas, Emiliano Martínez, Manuel Neuer, Jan Oblak, Samir Handanovic.

The title of Ballon d’Or 2021 will be decided by votes of international sports journalists, coaches and captains of national teams. This award will be announced by France Football during an event in Paris on October 29.