BALLON D'OR
How old were Messi and Cristiano when they won their first Ballon d’Or?
The iconic duo dominated global soccer for a decade and a half and have each racked up an incredible number of individual awards.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are now in the twilight of their incredible careers. They have lifted nearly every trophy imaginable but their excellence is just as defined by their longevity as it is by the astonishing peaks they reached.
In 2007 Brazilian star Kaka won the Ballon d’Or, with Ronaldo finishing second and Messi in third. Incredibly, that would be more than a decade until another player won the award.
In December 2008 a 23-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo lifted the first of his five Ballon d’Or awards. The following year Lionel Messi, then just 22, won the award for the first time.
Messi would go on to win the subsequent three Ballon d’Or awards, with Ronaldo following up with back-to-back triumphs in 2013 and 2014. In 2022 neither Messi nor Ronaldo made the final three for the first time since 2006, an incredible stretch of dominance.
Who is the youngest player to win Ballon d’Or?
Messi was 22 and 160 days when he won the award in 2009, making him the third-youngest player to win the Ballon d’Or. The youngest-ever recipient of the award was Brazilian striker Ronaldo who was named the best player on the planet in 1997, aged just 21.
At the time he was playing for Barcelona and struck 47 goals in 49 games for the Spanish giants. The following season Ronaldo would go on to dominate the 1998 World Cup with Brazil, but his team fell to France in the final.
English forward Michael Owen is the second-youngest player to win the Ballon d’Or. He was 22 and four days when he won the 2001 award.
Who is the oldest player to win Ballon d’Or?
Messi won his record eighth Ballon ‘Or at the age of 36 earlier this year. The Argentine had led Argentina to a World Cup triumph in 2022 and he had made an impressive start to life with Inter Miami in MLS.
But Messi is only second in the list of the oldest players to win Ballon d’Or and is very unlikely to toppled the current record-holder.
The very first Ballon d’Or, back in 1956, was awarded to English forward Stanley Matthews. He was 41 at the time of the award but was still starring for his beloved Blackpool in the top tier of English soccer. He narrowly defeated Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano in the inaugural edition of the award.