{"id":46657,"date":"2021-07-13T16:30:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T15:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/messis-rivals-for-ballon-dor-this-year-revealed-full-list"},"modified":"2021-07-13T16:30:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T15:30:31","slug":"messis-rivals-for-ballon-dor-this-year-revealed-full-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/messis-rivals-for-ballon-dor-this-year-revealed-full-list","title":{"rendered":"Messi\u2019s rivals for Ballon d\u2019Or this year revealed [Full list]"},"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>Argentina and Barcelona captain Lionel Messi\u2019s reported rivals for this year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or have been revealed.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mundo Deportivo, Messi, who won Copa del Rey with Barcelona this year, will battle Chelsea and Italy hero, Jorginho, as well as France midfielder, N\u2019Golo Kante for the Ballon d\u2019 Or.<\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old won his first trophy for Argentina last weekend as they defeated Brazil 1-0 in the Copa America final at the Maracana Stadium, thanks to Angel Di Maria\u2019s first-half goal.<\/p>\n<p>The Barcelona number 10, who scored the most goals at Copa America, also won the player of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Kante has been tipped to win the Ballon d\u2019 Or following his outstanding display for Chelsea against Manchester City as they won the 2020\/21 Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>Kante also won the \u2018Man of the Match\u2019 in the win over Man City, but his chances could be affected by France\u2019s poor display at the just concluded Euro 2020, having been knocked out by Switzerland in the round of 16.<\/p>\n<p>Jorginho, however, has also been tipped by former Chelsea manager, Maurizio Sarri, to win the Ballon d\u2019 Or.<\/p>\n<p>He has enjoyed a stunning year, winning both the Champions League and Euro 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Amongst other contenders for the Ballon d\u2019 Or are; Kylian Mbappe, Robert Lewandowski, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, Harry Kane and Federico Chiesa.<\/p>\n<p>Recall that the Ballon d\u2019 Or was not handed out in 2020 due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Argentina and Barcelona captain Lionel Messi\u2019s reported rivals for this year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or have been revealed. According to Mundo Deportivo, Messi, who won Copa del Rey with Barcelona this year, will battle Chelsea and Italy hero, Jorginho, as well as France midfielder, N\u2019Golo Kante for the Ballon d\u2019 Or. The 34-year-old won [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":46656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,18,26],"tags":[1570,2140,4459,1629,254],"class_list":["post-46657","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-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>Messi\u2019s rivals for Ballon d\u2019Or this year revealed [Full list] - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Argentina and Barcelona captain Lionel Messi\u2019s reported rivals for this year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or have been revealed. 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