2008 Ballon d'Or

2008 Ballon d'Or
2008 Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo
Date	2 December 2008 (2008-12-02)
Location	Paris, France
Country	France
Presented by	France Football
Highlights
Won by	Cristiano Ronaldo (1st award)
Website	www.francefootball.fr
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The 2008 Ballon d'Or, given to the best football player in the world as judged by an international panel of sports journalists,^[1] was awarded on 2 December 2008.^[2] Cristiano Ronaldo won the award, being his first of five. His win also began a 10-year dominance of the award between him and Lionel Messi — which eventually led to an intense rivalry between the two. Both players had won five Ballon d'Or awards before the dominance was ended in 2018 by Luka Modrić.

Rankings

Rank	Player	Nationality	Club(s)	Points
1	Cristiano Ronaldo	Portugal	Manchester United	446
2	Lionel Messi	Argentina	Barcelona	281
3	Fernando Torres	Spain	Liverpool	179
4	Iker Casillas	Spain	Real Madrid	133
5	Xavi	Spain	Barcelona	97
6	Andrey Arshavin	Russia	Zenit Saint Petersburg	64
7	David Villa	Spain	Valencia	55
8	Zlatan Ibrahimović	Sweden	Internazionale	30
9	Kaká	Brazil	Milan	29
10	Steven Gerrard	England	Liverpool	28
11	Marcos Senna	Spain	Villarreal	16
12	Emmanuel Adebayor	Togo	Arsenal	12
13	Wayne Rooney	England	Manchester United	11
14	Sergio Agüero	Argentina	Atlético Madrid	10
15	Frank Lampard	England	Chelsea	8
16	Franck Ribéry	France	Bayern Munich	7
17	Samuel Eto'o	Cameroon	Barcelona	6
18	Gianluigi Buffon	Italy	Juventus	5
19	Michael Ballack	Germany	Chelsea	4
	Cesc Fàbregas	Spain	Arsenal	4
21	Didier Drogba	Ivory Coast	Chelsea	3
	Sergio Ramos	Spain	Real Madrid	3
	Nemanja Vidić	Serbia	Manchester United	3
24	Edwin van der Sar	Netherlands	Manchester United	2
	Ruud van Nistelrooy	Netherlands	Real Madrid	2
26	Karim Benzema	France	Lyon	0
	Pepe	Portugal	Real Madrid	0
	Luca Toni	Italy	Bayern Munich	0
	Rafael van der Vaart	Netherlands	Real Madrid	0
	Yuri Zhirkov	Russia	CSKA Moscow	0

References