Messi, Ronaldo, Van Dijk Favorites To Win Ballon d’Or As Rapinoe Poised To Win Women’s Category

The lists for the 2019 men’s and women’s Ballon d’Or best player crowns have been released. It has Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Virgil van Dijk leading 30 nominees in the male category of the 2019 Ballon d’Or.

Six Liverpool players are included in the list while PSG star Neymar has been completely omitted from the 30-man shortlist. 

Below is the list of the 30 nominated male players:

1. Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool/Netherlands)  
2. Bernardo Silva (Man City/Portugal)  
3. Heung-min Son (Tottenham/South Korea)  
4. Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich/Poland)  
5. Roberto Firmino (Liverpool/Brazil)  
6. Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus/Portugal)  
7. Alisson Becker (Liverpool/Brazil)  
8. Matthijs de Ligt (Ajax/Juventus/Netherlands)  
9. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid)  
10. Georginio Wijnaldum (Liverpool/Netherlands)  
11. Kylian Mbappé (PSG/France)  
12. Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool/England)  
13. Donny van de Beek (Ajax/Netherlands)  
14. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal/Gabon)  
15. Marc-André ter Stegen (Barcelona/Germany)  
16. Sadio Mané (Liverpool/Senegal)  
17. Sergio Agüero (Man City/Argentina)  
18. Frenkie de Jong (Ajax/Barcelona/Netherlands)  
19. Hugo Lloris (Tottenham/France)  
20. Dusan Tadic (Ajax/Serbia)  
21. Lionel Messi (Barcelona/Argentina)  
22. Riyad Mahrez (Man City/Algeria)  
23. Kevin De Bruyne (Man City/Belgium)  
24. Kalidou Koulibaly (Napoli/Senegal)  
25. Antoine Griezmann (Atlético Madrid/Barcelona/France)  
26. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool/Egypt)  
27. Eden Hazard (Chelsea/Real Madrid/Belgium)  
28. Marquinhos (PSG/Brazil)  
29. Raheem Sterling (Liverpool/England)  
30. João Félix (Benfica/Atlético Madrid/Portugal)

In the women’s category, Megan Rapinoe, Lucy Bronze and Ada Hegerberg are leading in the 20-name list of nominees for 2019 women’s Ballon d’Or.

Ada Hegerberg, who won the maiden edition last year, is on the list of nominees for this year’s award.