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Louis Saha has named Thierry Henry as the player who should have won more Ballon d'Or but heaped praise on Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. He was in awe of the two GOATs of the game and admitted that no one could match them.
Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda via BetSelect, Saha said that Ronaldo deserved more Ballon d'Or in his career, just like Henry. He added that the image of the Portuguese star might have drifted a few votes away from him to Messi and said:
"Thierry Henry should have won a few. But honestly, in terms of stats, nobody, apart from those two, managed to be there. No one dominates like those two did. How do you finish the season with 90 goals? Just explain to me. It's impossible. But for me, the Ballon d'Or seems to use criteria we didn't know about because Ronaldo should have won more. Maybe it was the image he portrayed that people may dislike, which is why he didn't get the votes."
When quizzed about the players who could be winning the Ballon d'Or in the future, Saha named Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr as his top picks before saying Lamine Yamal, but believes that the Barcelona youngster needs to wait for his time. He said:
"Future Ballon d'Ors? Mbappé, Haaland, Vinicius. Bellingham is very close. I do think that Yamal will need to wait a little bit, but he's going to be up there."
Thierry Henry came close to winning the Ballon d'Or in 2006, when Fabio Cannavaro took home the France Football award. The Italian won the award with 173 points, while Gigi Buffon finished 2nd with 124 and the Arsenal legend came 3rd with 121.
Cristiano Ronaldo wanted to win more Ballon d'Ors than Lionel Messi
Cristiano Ronaldo spoke to Piers Morgan in 2019 and admitted that he wanted to finish his career with more Ballon d'Ors than Lionel Messi. He believed that he deserved more than the Argentine and said via Sky Sports:
"I would love [more], and I think I deserve it. Messi is a fantastic guy, a fantastic player. He's in the history of football - but I think I have to have six or seven or eight to be above him. My relationship with him is, we are not friends, but we have shared this stage for 15 years. I have a good relationship with him and I know that he has pushed me to be a better player and I have pushed him to be a better player as well."
Cristiano Ronaldo currently has 5 Ballon d'Or to his name, while Lionel Messi has 8 trophies in his collection.
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Sripad is a veteran Sportskeeda football journalist who has been with the company for around 10 years. His tryst with writing happened in class XI when he started penning blogs, and his foray into football was during the early 2000s, watching matches with his cousins.
Sripad has been a Chelsea fan through and through since the age of 9 and can watch their 2012 Champions League triumph on repeat. The undisputed ‘GOAT’ according to him is Lionel Messi and his favorite managers are Jose Mourinho and Sir Alex Ferguson. Apart from popular European leagues, he also likes to follow other leagues like the MLS, Saudi Pro League, Eredivisie, and Liga MX.
Sripad believes in only using the right sources for his articles, and is an expert in understanding how to get the right quotes for each news to provide proper background information. His exploits have led him to become a popular figure in European Football and interviewing Premier League legends such as Alan Shearer, Shay Given, Paul Dickov, and John Barnes. His articles have been much revered amongst the football fraternity and have been shared by the likes of John Terry, Gary Lineker, and Declan Rice.
If given a chance to change a football rule, Sripad wants VAR to be fully automated and offside rules to be less stringent. When not working, he likes to watch past Formula 1 races and play FIFA.
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Edited by Vaishnavi Iyer