PARIS: Luka Modric won the Ballon d’Or award for the first time on Monday, ending the 10-year dominance of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Modric won the Champions League with Real Madrid and then guided Croatia to the World Cup final in July. He was voted player of the tournament.
“As a kid we all have dreams. My dream was to play for a big club and win important trophies,” Modric said. “The Ballon d’Or was more than just a dream for me and it is really an honor and a privilege to hold this trophy.”
Ronaldo was second in the Ballon d’Or followed by France forward Antoine Griezmann. France’s teen star, Kylian Mbappe, was fourth in the polling. Brazil star Neymar, who was third last year, was a lowly 12th despite a domestic treble with Paris Saint-Germain.
Also, Norwegian forward Ada Hegerberg won the inaugural women’s Ballon d’Or.
Modric, who has won the Champions League four times with Madrid, was fifth in Ballon d’Or polling last year.
“2018 is a dream year for me,” the 33-year-old Modric said. “Throughout my career I realized hard work, persistence and belief in yourself in difficult moments are the foundations of success.”
Modric’s father was shown on the big screen during the ceremony at the imperious Grand Palais in Paris, wiping away tears.
Ronaldo missed out on a record sixth award, which would have moved him one ahead of Messi. The last player to win it before those two started dominating world soccer awards was Brazil midfielder Kaka with AC Milan in 2007.
Ronaldo also won the Champions League last season with Modric, before leaving to join Juventus. He scored a hat trick against Spain at the World Cup but he failed to make an impression when Portugal lost to Uruguay in the round of 16.
Mbappe and Griezmann scored in the 4-2 World Cup final win against Croatia. Mbappe won the domestic treble with PSG, while Griezmann scored twice for Atletico Madrid in the Europa League final win against Marseille.
France coach Didier Deschamps said a France player should have won the award.
“They deserve it because of what they did with the national team at the World Cup and also because of the trophies they won with their clubs,” Deschamps said.
Messi was fifth in the voting, having been runner-up to Ronaldo the past two years and in the top three every year since 2007. Modric had never previously been in the top three.
The previous oldest winner was central defender Fabio Cannvaro, who was also 33 when he won it in 2006 after helping Italy win the World Cup.
The 19-year-old Mbappe — the youngest player to score in a World Cup final — also won the Raymond Kopa Trophy awarded to the best young player.
Hegerberg is a three-time Women’s Champions League winner with French side Lyon and scored a tournament-record 15 times last season.
France Football magazine has been awarding the Ballon d’Or since 1956, and created a women’s award for the first time this year.
“I want to say thanks to France Football. It’s a huge step for women’s football,” Hegerberg said. “I want to end this speech with a message to all young girls in the world. Believe in yourselves.”
The outspoken 23-year-old Hegerberg said she won’t play for Norway at the Women’s World Cup in France next June.
Taking a stand against what she describes as a lack of respect for female players in Norway, she hasn’t played for the national team since it crashed out of the group stage of the Women’s European Championship in 2017 without scoring a goal.
After collecting her Ballon d’Or, Hegerberg told The Associated Press she has no plans to reconsider her decision taken to preserve her “authenticity and my values, as a person, as a footballer.”
“A lot of things need to be done to make the conditions better for women who play football,” she said. “It’s all about how we respect women’s football. I don’t think the respect has been there.
“Sometimes you have to take tough decisions to stay true to yourself. I let them know, quite clearly, what I found wasn’t working.”
Luka Modric wins Ballon d’Or to end Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s reign
Luka Modric wins Ballon d’Or to end Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s reign
- Real Madrid and Croatia star picks up award after Champions League glory and World Cup heroics.
- First time in 10 years a player other than Messi and Ronaldo has won the coveted prize.
Djokovic reaches Australian Open semis as Musetti retires
- Serb continues his quest for a record-extending 11th Australian Open title and standalone 25th Grand Slam crown
- Task gets tougher for Djokovic with a clash against either defending champion Jannik Sinner or Ben Shelton
MELBOURNE: Novak Djokovic continued his quest for a record-extending 11th Australian Open title and standalone 25th Grand Slam crown, but only after a cruel twist of fate for Lorenzo Musetti, who quit their quarter-final with an injury on Wednesday while leading.
While the stars seemed to align for the 38-year-old Serb in his hunt for more glory at the majors, Iga Swiatek’s bid to seal a career Grand Slam — capturing all four of the sport’s biggest titles — went up in smoke following a defeat by Elena Rybakina.
There were several swings in momentum for Jessica Pegula, who deservedly reached the Melbourne Park semifinals for the first time after dashing fellow American Amanda Anisimova’s hopes of reaching three straight major finals.
The drama in the day session was reserved for the afternoon match where Djokovic arrived fresh for battle with Musetti after getting a walkover on Sunday from Czech youngster Jakub Mensik, which scuttled their fourth-round meeting.
The Serb made a fast start but it was all one-way traffic as the artistic Musetti showed his full range of strokes and bagged the opening two sets, before the Italian pulled up holding the upper part of his right leg at the start of the third.
Musetti looked to soldier on after receiving treatment, but lasted only one more game and he threw in the towel leading 6-4 6-3 1-3 as stunned fans at the Rod Laver Arena let out a gasp and Djokovic quietly heaved a sigh of relief.
“I don’t know what to say, except that I feel really sorry for him and he was a far better player,” Djokovic said.
“I was on my way home. These things happen in sport and it’s happened to me a few times, but being in the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam, two sets to love up and being in full control, I mean it’s so unfortunate.”
Musetti said he was pained by having to retire after taking a big lead against the experienced Djokovic, adding the trouble in his leg first began in the second set.
“I felt there was something strange,” he added.
“I continued to play, because I was playing really well, but I was feeling that the pain was increasing, and the problem was not going away.
“In the end, when I took the medical timeout ... and started to play again, I felt it even more and it was getting higher and higher, the level of the pain.”
Tough test
Though he eclipsed Roger Federer with his 103rd match win at Melbourne Park, the task will only get tougher for Djokovic with a clash against either defending champion Jannik Sinner or young American Ben Shelton in the last-four.
As one fifth seed crashed, another gained flight as Elena Rybakina booked her place in the semifinals with a dominant 7-5 6-1 win over six-times Grand Slam champion Swiatek.
Swiatek was left to rue the defeat and the lack of privacy in difficult moments off the court where players cannot escape cameras, a day after Coco Gauff’s racket-smashing meltdown in response to her crushing defeat by Elina Svitolina.
“The question is, are we tennis players or are we animals in the zoo, where they are observed even when they poop?” she said.
“That was exaggerating obviously, but it would be nice to have privacy. It would be nice also to have your own process and not always be observed.”
All eyes were on sixth seed Pegula later as she stayed on course for her maiden Grand Slam trophy by going past Anisimova 6-2 7-6(1), sparkling despite some testing moments toward the end of the clash.
“I’m really happy with my performance,” Pegula said.
“From start to finish there was a lot of momentum swings, but I thought I came out playing really well, came out serving really well, and was able to just hold on there in the second and get that break back and take it in two.
“I showed good mental resilience there at the end not to get frustrated.”
