PARIS: The biggest names in world football will descend on Paris on Monday for the 2019 Ballon d’Or ceremony, with Lionel Messi and USA women’s World Cup superstar Megan Rapinoe tipped to leave with the honours. That ended a decade in which Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo had won the Ballon d’Or five times each, but the smart money now is on the Barcelona man claiming number six. “If you give the Ballon d’Or to the best player of this generation then you should give it always to Lionel Messi. Yet surely nobody could suggest Rapinoe would not be a deserving winner of just the second women’s Ballon d’Or, an award voted for by a panel of 48 journalists. “She does lots of things off the pitch, but I think she is the favourite to win the Ballon d’Or mainly down to her performances during the World Cup,” Bronze told France Football.

Source: Pakistan Today December 01, 2019 01:52 UTC