For more than seven decades, the Golden Globe Award, the Ballon d’Or, has been awarded to the world’s best player since 1956 when Stanley Matthews became the first winner of the prestigious award in footballing history.
Throughout the years, the Ballon d’Or has moved houses all around the globe, reflecting that football is not limited to one nation, with Lionel Messi the most awarded Ballon d’Or in history (8).
As we warm up to the upcoming Ballon d’Or ceremony, ทางเข้า https://ufabet999.app takes a look at which football league has produced the most Ballon d’Or winners of all time.
La Liga – 24 times
La Liga has the most Ballon d’Or awards in history, with a total of 24.
What many people may not know is that more than half of that number comes from the two biggest stars of the era, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who have taken turns winning the award over the past 20 years. Barcelona’s Johan Cruyff and Real Madrid’s Alfredo Di Stefano have also won the award twice. Fun
fact: no other team, apart from Barcelona and Real Madrid, has ever won the award.
Serie A – 18 times
Although Serie A has recently been seen as a league that is out of the mainstream football fans’ sight, it must not be forgotten that during the 1980-2000s, Italian football was a football superpower.
Michel Platini was the winner of the most prestigious awards, winning three times while playing for Juventus, while league rivals AC Milan and Inter Milan had Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten, and Lothar Matthäus in the competition.
Unfortunately, Serie A has not been able to produce world-class stars as much as other leagues, so Ricardo Kaka was the last winner of the award in 2007.
Bundesliga – 8 times
During the time when the German national team was the greatest in the world, two national heroes, Franz Beckenbauer and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, reached the top of the footballing world twice each.
As for the English player, Kevin Keegan, despite playing abroad with Hamburg, still managed to show his outstanding form and win the Ballon d’Or award twice.
Premier League / English First Division – 6 times
Despite being considered the best football league in the world and having won European Cups on numerous occasions, over the past seven decades, English players have only won the Ballon d’Or six times, with no player achieving it more than once.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the latest Premier League player to win the award with Manchester United, while Liverpool have only had Michael Owen, during his time at the top, win the award.
Soviet Top League – 3 times
Although the Soviet Union is no longer on the world map, believe it or not, the former superpower still holds the record for the most Ballon d’Or awards, more than the French Ligue 1. The
most notable is Lev Yashin, who remains the only goalkeeper in history to have won the Ballon d’Or.
French Ligue 1 – 2 times
Jean-Pierre Papin became the first Ligue 1 player to win the Ballon d’Or in 1991, before Lionel Messi repeated the feat while at Paris Saint-Germain.
Major League Soccer – 1 time
In fact, it wasn’t Lionel Messi’s work with Inter Miami that earned him his eighth Ballon d’Or award, but rather his work leading the Argentine national team to victory in the World Cup. It coincided with the time when Messi moved to a new club, the American football league, and he was also included in the list.