2018 Ballon D'or: Does The World Want to Shift Away from Messi, Ronaldo Rivalry?

Disclaimer: My own hunch, not exactly the fact out there.

I feel the world want Luka Modric to win Ballon D'or 2018. He just won FIFA The Best and you can't take that way from him. He played the part of a Superhero in taking Croatia to Russia 2018 Fifa World Cup finals. And he has been "the engine-room" the midfield meastro that make things happen for Real Madrid four years reign as Uefa champions league and Fifa World clubs champions.

But if you leave emotions out of it and pin it down to stats, then you may ask, was Modric better than Messi and Ronaldo last season? He had an edge at the world cup, but not anywhere near the performances or the rare class of Messi and Ronlado.

My thought on this, may be the world need a "breathe of fresh air." The rivalry between Messi and Ronaldo has span over a decade, which saw these two Superstar win Ballon D'or 5 times each, may have become stale to the entire football community and consumers.

Meanwhile, let us look at Opta stats in comparism of Messi, Ronaldo, Modric and Mohamed Salah...to show how emotions played out in leaving out Messi among the last three of FIFA The Best.

In front of goal

Both Salah (93.64) and Ronaldo (83.48) had better minutes-per-goal records than Messi (99.29) last term, but their identical hauls of 44 were one less than that of the Argentina star.

Messi also provided more assists than each of the nominees, setting up 18 goals, 10 more than both Ronaldo and Modric, while Salah created 14.

11 - Only Lionel Messi (45) scored more club goals than Mohamed Salah (44) last season in all competitions among players within the big five European leagues. Pharaoh. #TheBest pic.twitter.com/KreZwvOfeZ

— OptaJose (@OptaJose) September 3, 2018


On the ball

Salah's ability on the ball made him a thrill to watch last term, and he completed 114 of his 194 dribbles, both figures being signficantly higher than those of Ronaldo (55/96) and Modric (73/105).

But Messi blows all three of them out of the water, the Barca star having attempted 399 dribbles, of which 253 were successful.

10 - Luka Modrić was the only Real Madrid player with 50+ shots attempted (55), 50+ dribbles completed (73) and 200+ recoveries (254) last season in all competitions. Brain. #TheBest pic.twitter.com/aPp22f0uYQ

— OptaJose (@OptaJose) September 3, 2018



Distribution

Comparing Messi to Modric is difficult because they operate in such different roles, yet they do have similar attributes in terms of technical attributes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Modric (90.12 per cent) was accurate with a higher percentage of his passes than Messi (81.83 per cent), but a potential explanation for that is the forward played more passes on average per match (31.13) into the often-crowded final third of the pitch than the midfielder (21.67).

Messi also out-crafted the Croatian 121 to 60 in terms of chances created, while Ronaldo set up 54 chances. Salah got closest to Barcelona's talisman, working 97 opportunities for team-mates.

After closely looking at those Stats you may understand what I mean.