{"id":46263,"date":"2021-07-06T13:25:22","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T12:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi"},"modified":"2021-07-06T13:45:37","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T12:45:37","slug":"kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi","title":{"rendered":"Kante tipped to win Ballon d\u2019Or ahead of Messi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\">Nigeria<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Somali national team manager, Said Abdi Haibeh, has said France midfielder, N\u2019Golo Kante, deserves to win this year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or and not Barcelona\u2019s Lionel Messi.<\/p>\n<p>Messi is an annual favourite to win the individual award.<\/p>\n<p>Although Barca endured a poor 2020\/2021 campaign, the 34-year-old still finished the season with 33 goals and 13 assists in all competitions.<\/p>\n<p>It puts Messi in prime position to claim the prize for a record seventh time.<\/p>\n<p>Kante has impressed tremendously in the Chelsea midfield this season.<\/p>\n<p>Ballon d\u2019Or 2021: Didier Deschamps names player to win award<\/p>\n<p>He was named man of the match in both legs of the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid and won the prize again in the final against Manchester City.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne player who has been underestimated is N\u2019Golo Kante whom I was very lucky to meet in 2019 in London.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is a top player. There is a saying that goes \u2018the world is covered 70 percent by water and the remaining 30 is covered by Kante.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo see him win the Premier League with Leicester City and heading for Chelsea to win the league is incredible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe also helped the French national team win the Fifa World Cup before going ahead to win the Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, I believe he is definitely the right man to win the award 100 percent in my opinion,\u201d Haibeh told Goal.<\/p>\n<p>Kante opens up on possibility of winning Ballon d\u2019Or<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Somali national team manager, Said Abdi Haibeh, has said France midfielder, N\u2019Golo Kante, deserves to win this year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or and not Barcelona\u2019s Lionel Messi. Messi is an annual favourite to win the individual award. Although Barca endured a poor 2020\/2021 campaign, the 34-year-old still finished the season with 33 goals and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":46262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,18,26],"tags":[1570,2140,4459,3260,1629,254],"class_list":["post-46263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-ballon-dor","tag-kante","tag-messi","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>Kante tipped to win Ballon d\u2019Or ahead of Messi - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Somali national team manager, Said Abdi Haibeh, has said France midfielder, N\u2019Golo Kante, deserves to win this year\u2019s Ba ...\" \/>\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\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kante tipped to win Ballon d\u2019Or ahead of Messi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Somali national team manager, Said Abdi Haibeh, has said France midfielder, N\u2019Golo Kante, deserves to win this year\u2019s Ba ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-06T12:25:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-06T12:45:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/07\/img-60e450501280f.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\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\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Kante tipped to win Ballon d\u2019Or ahead of Messi\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-06T12:25:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-06T12:45:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi\"},\"wordCount\":251,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/07\/img-60e450501280f.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"ballon d'or\",\"Kante\",\"messi\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"Sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/kante-tipped-to-win-ballon-dor-ahead-of-messi\",\"name\":\"Kante tipped to win Ballon d\u2019Or ahead of Messi - 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