The Ballon d’Or 2022 was marked by the secrecy of its votes. It was not until four days later that France Football magazine revealed the difference by which the two winners of this edition prevailed: the Barcelona soccer player Alexia Putellas and the Real Madrid player Karim Benzema.
It coincides that both managed to win comfortably, especially the French striker, who did comfortably. He added a total of 549 votes, ahead of Sadio Mané (Liverpool / Bayern Munich), second-placed with 193 votes, and Manchester City footballer Kevin de Bruyne, third-placed with 175 points.
Benzema, the second oldest player to win the award behind Stanley Matthews (1956), has also been the second winner in history with such a wide difference after that obtained by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2016. The journalists from Countries The Netherlands, Slovenia, Senegal and Egypt were the only ones who did not vote for him as the first.
“It has been the best season of my life and in the end I have the Ballon d’Or. I have been dreaming of it since I was a child. I have fulfilled the three dreams I had in my life: buying a house for my mother, signing for Real Madrid because it is the best club in the world and the third is the Ballon d’Or. I am very proud of my work,” he assured in an interview with the club’s media this week.
In the female category, the difference was much smaller, but wider than what had been published in the British media. These pointed out that Alexia had surpassed her candidate Beth Mead (European Championship champion with England), when in fact the difference was 26 points.
The Barça midfielder, who last Thursday before the men’s game against Villarreal, gave the Camp Nou fans their second consecutive Ballon d’Or, added a total of 178 points, compared to 152 for Arsenal’s forward. In third place was Samm Kerr, far behind the first two (74 points).
Of the votes cast by the 30 members of the jury for the Women’s Ballon d’Or, Alexia Putellas was voted for the highest score by 19 members of the jury for the 15 who chose Beth Mead as their first choice. Five members of the jury did not count Alexia among their five voting options (Austria, Brazil, New Zealand, Switzerland and Ukraine).
Alexia is the first player to win this individual trophy twice in a row. On Wednesday she and she showed it to the Blaugrana fans who came to the Estadi Johan Cruyff to witness the debut in this edition of the Champions League, with a win over Benfica.
The anecdote of the voting was experienced in the Kopa Trophy that distinguishes those under 21 years of age and that the winners of the Golden Ball vote for. Each member of this jury chooses three players and they are distributed 5, 3 and 1 point. Gavi, the winner -as well as of the Golden Boy 2022- took the vote of a former Blaugrana but also a Real Madrid player like Luis Figo, who voted for Eduardo Camavinga (Real Madrid) in second option.
Instead, the ex-whites Modric, Kaká and Cannavaro opted for Camavinga. In the Croatian’s case, he didn’t even include Gavi in ??the top three (Gvardiol and Musiala took the other votes). Another who did not vote for the young Blaugrana was Zinedine Zidane. The former Madrid player and coach opted for Bellingham first, then Camavinga and Nuno Mendes.
Leo Messi did vote for Gavi as his first choice, followed by his PSG teammate Nuno Mendes and the Englishman Jude Bellingham.
