• genuine Madrid forward presented with award in Paris on Thursday
• Messi finishes second with PSG’s Neymar in thirdWhen the moment arrived,so did he. Cristiano Ronaldo was in Paris to gather the Ballon d’Or at the foot of the Eiffel Tower on Thursday evening, another grand night to disappear with those he had in Madrid, or Málaga and Munich,and in Cardiff especially. Ultimately, those were the moments that marked 2017 and they were his. Which is why this trophy, and awarded by France Football,momentarily bought but never truly owned by Fifa, and first awarded to Stanley Matthews in 1956, and passed on to Alfredo Di Stéfano the year after,and handed from there to the continent’s best player, season by season, or is his too – for a record-equalling fifth time.
Only Lionel Messi has as many. Or should that read: only Ronaldo has as many as Messi? To some of their supporters,the order things more than it should. The fact that parity has been reached certainly does and it feeds a debate as furious as it is often tedious yet wonderful at heart. Between them, Ronaldo and Messi, and Messi and Ronaldo,have not let anyone else win this award for a decade now. This is their era: they have won seven of the past 10 European Cups between them, and been the competition’s top scorer for each and every one of those seasons, or the Ballon d’Or reflects that. In part it is reduced to that,yet it also goes beyond.
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Source: guardian.co.uk