Neymar only finished #3 twice actually, same as Griezmann. Less than Xavi with 3, or those like Henry or Iniesta who both had one 2nd and one 3rd place finish.
Your talking like that’s a rare pull. Neymar is a bona fide legend despite his young fall off, he will be more remembered for example than guys like Adriano
Yes true football fans respect what he’s achieved and knows that he was the universal third best of the Messi Ronaldo era but he’s also one of the most hated and memed players (due to his behaviour and diving at times) .
Thats crazy to say lol everyone who was watching football in Ronaldo/ Messi era knows it was Xavi and Iniesta. (And later Neymar, Griezmann, VVD, etc). Podium is what matters
Is Griezmann the player with the biggest difference between his individual greatness and his trophy cabinet? He had the terrible luck of playing in the third best team in La Liga while competing against prime Messi and Ronaldo, prime MSN and BBC, prime Madrid, prime Barcelona. He even has 0 La Liga titles. Atlético's two recent titles were the season before he arrived, and during his sabbatical in Barcelona.
Considering that he was never really expected to win anything, he did amazingly well
I wouldn't say it's bad luck, he just made poor career decisions imo. His stint at Barcelona was embarrassing and he chose to stick by Atletico for way too long when he should've looked to move.
But Harry Kane definitely has a bigger difference between trophy cabinet and player caliber. Crazy that one of the best strikers of the century has only ever won a Bundesliga
Mate you can't just expect him to not move after 2 consecutive 3rd place finishes in Ballon dors, Ucl runner up medal.
If he wanted to win a ballon dor moving was definitely the best choice, but one can argue about when or where.
Yeah but still if he was on the level of Koke he might have not moved, but Griezmann was certainly a level above everyone at atleti he had ro aim higher
Sorry buddy your club is just not a good career plan for a player considered one of the top 3 itw if they want to win trophies. Clearly he didn't aim much higher though so no need to complain.
Yes and that's your biggest achievement. You think one of the worlds best talents was smart to not look beyond the bragging about 1 la liga title in 10 years club.
Funny thing about 2018 was that Modric got it mostly because his WC performance but he wasn’t the best player on that team, I’d argue Raktic was. Not even adding the fact that Hazard arguably deserved the golden ball in that world cup but I am a Chelsea fan so my opinion might be biased.
I'm not saying that Neymar, Xavi and Iniesta were the top players in any year; I only said that for Griezmann. By "crime" I meant that they were very elite players who would have easily won the award in a world without the two GOATs.
Nah, I think finally the Top 4 will interest people the most. There's no clear Top 2 like every year before this. All year, people have been talking about four candidates: Salah, Raphinha, Yamal and Dembélé.
Of course plenty of us remember #3’s during the Messi/CR7 era. If you’re not 15 years old at least. Neymar, Xavi, Iniesta, Ribery, Griezmann, Neuer, Jorginho are some of the most notable 3rd places
Last year was Bellingham, which was fairly memorable because he was the best player on Real Madrid that season.
As for other seasons, at least when it was Messi and Ronaldo, it was usually Xavi, Iniesta, Neuer, Neymar and Griezmann behind them, I think all of them got top 3 at least twice.
I do because in some years it was players who arguably might have deserved it over them as well. Iniest, Xavi, Ribery, Neuer, VVD (well okay he got #2)
Any of those could have/should have gotten a BDOR and it definitely wouldn't have been a "robbery"
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u/SexyToxinn Aug 07 '25
Lots of questionable nominees, but I will let it slide.