{"id":161181,"date":"2025-05-02T22:59:28","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T21:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award"},"modified":"2025-05-02T22:59:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T21:59:28","slug":"ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award","title":{"rendered":"Ballon d\u2019Or 2025: Goldbridge disagrees with Ferdinand, names two players that deserve award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Football pundit, Mark Goldbridge has disagreed with Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand for backing Lamine Yamal to win the 2025 Ballon d\u2019Or.<\/p>\n<p>Ferdinand had backed Yamal to win this year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or.<\/p>\n<p>The Englishman spoke following Barcelona\u2019s Champions League semi-final first leg 3-3 draw with Inter Milan on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>However, Goldbridge disagreed with Ferdinand, insisting that the likes of Raphinha and Ousmane Dembele deserved the Ballon d\u2019Or this year ahead of Yamal.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, both players have been better than the Spain winger this term.<\/p>\n<p>Taking to X, Goldbridge said: \u201cYamal is sensational but the mainstream coverage of him and handing him the Ballon d\u2019Or is so insulting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Barca teammate] Raphinha is having an immense season and so is [Ousmane] Dembele at PSG. Less Rio sensationalism and more realism in the analysis please.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Football pundit, Mark Goldbridge has disagreed with Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand for backing Lamine Yamal to win the 2025 Ballon d\u2019Or. Ferdinand had backed Yamal to win this year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or. The Englishman spoke following Barcelona\u2019s Champions League semi-final first leg 3-3 draw with Inter Milan on Wednesday. However, Goldbridge disagreed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":161180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[15718,3477,17089,254],"class_list":["post-161181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-ballon-dor-2025","tag-ferdinand","tag-goldbridge","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ballon d\u2019Or 2025: Goldbridge disagrees with Ferdinand, names two players that deserve award - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ballon d\u2019Or 2025: Goldbridge disagrees with Ferdinand, names two players that deserve award\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Football pundit, Mark Goldbridge has disagreed with Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand for backing Lamine Yamal to win the 2025 Ballon d\u2019Or. Ferdinand had backed Yamal to win this year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or. The Englishman spoke following Barcelona\u2019s Champions League semi-final first leg 3-3 draw with Inter Milan on Wednesday. However, Goldbridge disagreed [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-02T21:59:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Ballon d\u2019Or 2025: Goldbridge disagrees with Ferdinand, names two players that deserve award\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-02T21:59:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award\"},\"wordCount\":164,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/05\/sm_1746214315.46421.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Ballon d'Or 2025\",\"Ferdinand\",\"Goldbridge\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/ballon-dor-2025-goldbridge-disagrees-with-ferdinand-names-two-players-that-deserve-award\",\"name\":\"Ballon d\u2019Or 2025: Goldbridge disagrees with Ferdinand, names two players that deserve award - 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