• At 34, Benzema is the oldest winner of the Ballon d’Or since the very first winner, Stanley Matthews in 1956

 

France striker Karim Benzema won the Ballon d’Or at a ceremony in Paris on Monday, the reward coming after his stunning performances helped Real Madrid win the Champions League and La Liga last season. Benzema, who is the first French winner of the most prestigious individual prize in football since Zinedine Zidane in 1998, scored 44 goals in 46 games for his club including 15 in the Champions League.
Benzema, who also won the UEFA Nations League with France last season, pushed Bayern Munich and Senegal star Sadio Mane into second place. Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City and Belgium was third, with Barcelona and Poland star Robert Lewandowski coming fourth.
Winning the award, which is given out by France Football magazine, caps a remarkable career revival for Benzema, who was frozen out of the France team for five and a half years because of his involvement in a blackmail scandal over a sextape involving teammate Mathieu Valbuena.
He was later handed a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 75,000 euros ($73,848) for his involvement in the affair.
However, he returned to the national team for last year’s European Championship and will now go to the World Cup in Qatar with France next month. He will turn 35 on December 19, the day after the World Cup final.
Benzema is the oldest winner of the Ballon d’Or since the very first winner, Stanley Matthews in 1956. The former Lyon striker is also the fifth Frenchman to win the prize, with Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini and Jean-Pierre Papin all getting their hands on the trophy before Zidane’s victory in 1998.
Lewandowski received the award for last season’s top goalscorer, renamed the Gerd Mueller Trophy, for the second straight year. The 34-year-old, who joined Barcelona from Bayern Munich in the close season, scored 57 goals in 56 matches for club and country last term. He was the top-scorer in the Bundesliga with 35 goals.
Lewandowski also won the award last year when it was presented for the first time, after breaking the Bundesliga scoring record for a single season, previously held by Mueller, with 41 goals. But he is yet to win the Ballon d’Or itself, having narrowly missed out to Lionel Messi 12 months ago. The Pole would have been a strong favourite to take the honours in 2020, but the ceremony was controversially scrapped due to the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the football calendar.

Putellas eyes return from injury this season after retaining Ballon d’Or
Alexia Putellas said she hoped to return from a serious knee injury before the end of this season but refused to discuss her future with the Spanish national team after winning her second successive women’s Ballon d’Or yesterday.
The reward for Putellas, 28, came after a season in which she was the top scorer as her club Barcelona reached the Champions League final. The prize, awarded at a star-studded ceremony at the Chatelet Theatre in central Paris, is also a consolation for Putellas who is currently recovering from a serious knee injury.
The injury saw her miss the Euro in England in July and means she faces a battle to play at all this season. “The knee is doing well. I just need to focus on recovering and if everything goes as I hope – and as the doctors and my club hope – I hope to be back playing this season,” she said.
There is a World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in July and August next year, although the presence of Putellas appears in some doubt anyway for reasons other than her injury. The Barcelona captain recently published a statement calling for change, along with 15 national team players who asked not to be called up by Spain, amid differences with the coach Jorge Vilda and the Spanish football federation. “All I am going to say today about the national team is that obviously it is a topic that makes me very sad,” she said. “I think it needs to be spoken about but today is not the day. This is a day for celebration, a historic day, and that’s all.”
Putellas saw off stiff competition, notably from three stars of the England team that won the European Championship, to take the Ballon d’Or following a campaign which also saw Barcelona win a domestic league and cup double. Putellas scored 11 goals in the Champions League last season as holders Barcelona reached the final but lost to Lyon.
It is just the fourth time that a women’s Ballon d’Or has been awarded, with Norway’s Ada Hegerberg winning the inaugural prize in 2018 before United States superstar Megan Rapinoe succeeded her in 2019.
There was no Ballon d’Or gala in 2020 due to the pandemic before Putellas won it for the first time last year after helping Barca to Women’s Champions League glory for the first time in their history.



Barcelona’s Alexia Putellas with the women’s Ballon d’Or award. (Reuters)


Barcelona’s Polish forward Robert Lewandowski won the Gerd Muller Trophy for best striker. (AFP)