Luka Modric wins the Ballon d’Or: Real Madrid star ends decade of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo dominance

1/51
Ben Hayward2 December 2019

Luka Modric has been crowned as this year’s Ballon d’Or winner, France Football confirmed at the award ceremony in Paris on Monday night.

The Real Madrid midfielder is the first Croatian winner of the individual prize and caps a fine year in which he helped his club win a third consecutive Champions League title and also led his nation to the World Cup final in Russia.

Modric, who is 33, also claimed Fifa’s The Best award in September and ends a decade of dominance by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the Ballon d’Or.

Between the two of them, the Portuguese and the Argentine had won all of the previous 10 Ballons d’Or, with five apiece in that time since Kaka won the trophy in 2007.

However, both will have to wait for the chance to add a sixth Golden Ball to their respective collections after a jury of journalists from different nations picked Modric as the winner of this year’s award.

The Croatian midfielder is expected to present the trophy to the Santiago Bernabeu next week, either ahead of the Champions League clash against CSKA Moscow on Wednesday or in the La Liga game at home to Rayo Vallecano the following Saturday.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in