KARIM THE DREAM

Sebastian Zucchet

On Monday evening, the 2022 Ballon d’Or awards took place in Paris, France. Multiple awards were handed out including the Kopa Trophy, the Club of the Year, the Gerd Muller Trophy, the Yashin Trophy, the Feminine Ballon d’Or, and of course the Ballon d’Or. Down below are the big winners on the night.

Club of the Year - Manchester City

It came as a bit of a shock to many when Manchester City won the award, considering Real Madrid won the Champions League. City won their sixth Premier League title in style last season where they came back against Aston Villa on the final day to beat Liverpool to the league by one point. But other than that, that was the only thing that they won. They were knocked out in the Champions League semi final by Real Madrid, lost to Liverpool in the FA Cup semi final, and were knocked out by West Ham United in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup. Despite that, City are an incredible team and are favourites to win the Champions League this season, but it may not have been the right call to give them club of the year.

Gerd Muller Trophy - Robert Lewandowski

Another historic season for Robert Lewandowski saw him bag 57 goals in all competitions last season for Bayern Munich and pick up the Gerd Muller trophy, a trophy that's named after another legendary Bayern Munich striker. He scored 35 goals in the Bundesliga last season, guiding Bayern to their tenth consecutive title. He also scored ten goals in the Champions League. He will be looking to try and win this award again but with Barcelona, and is already putting up decent numbers averaging a goal per game in La Liga. He also finished fourth in this season's Ballon d’Or rankings.

Yashin Trophy - Thibaut Courtois

The Real Madrid and Belgian shot stopper deservingly won the award for the best goalkeeper. He played a huge roll in Real Madrid’s champions league success, playing one of the matches of his life in the final.

He won “Man of the Match” for the final, and the clean sheet in the final was his twenty-second of the season, outstanding numbers for the big Belgian. Courtois even ranked seventh in the Ballon d’Or rankings, ahead of Erling Haaland and Cristiano Ronaldo. A worthy recipient of the award.

Kopa Trophy - Gavi

The Kopa Trophy is awarded to the best player under the age of 21, and this year's recipient was Gavi, the 18 year old Barcelona midfielder. A bit of a surprise winner, as most people had their bets on Jamal Musiala or Jude Bellingham winning. Gavi has two goals and six assists in his career, and is a bright young talent that will succeed at Barcelona under legendary midfield maestro Xavi but it feels like this award was a bit undeserved. Nonetheless it is a great achievement and is only the beginning of a great career.

Ballon d’Or Feminine - Alexia Putellas

One of the greatest female players of our generation is Barcelona captain Alexia Putellas. Putellas had 18 goals as she led the club to their seventh league title in style. 30 wins, 0 draws, 0 losses. 159 goals for, and only 11 conceded, an astonishing season. It was almost perfectly capped off but they lost in the Women’s Champions League final to Lyon.

Putellas was the leading goalscorer and named best player of the tournament with 11 goals. Putellas underwent a heartbreaking injury that would cause her to miss the historic 2022 Women’s Euro Cup and she wouldn’t be able to help Spain take a run at the trophy. Luckily this ACL injury did not hinder her chances at a second straight Ballon d’Or Feminine. She is the first female player to win the award back to back and is now the player with the highest number of wins. I suspect there will be more in the future.

Ballon d’Or - Karim Benzema

The main event was of course Karim Benzema winning his first Ballon d’Or, and it was a well deserved win. After many controversies throughout his career, it was amazing to see Benzema finally win the most prestigious individual award in football. Karim Benzema was instrumental in Real Madrid’s record fourteenth Champions League title, and their domestic success.

27 league goals and 15 in the Champions League is an incredible stat and shows how far Benzema has come in this leadership role for Madrid after the exit of Cristiano Ronaldo a couple of years ago. He is one of the best strikers of this generation and at 34 years old shows no signs of slowing down. Everyone knew he was going to win coming into it, but it was great to see him finally up there with the Ballon d’Or in his hands. He also had a cold outfit.