PARIS (AP) — Karim Benzema won the boys’s Ballon d’Or for the primary time on Monday after a superb season with Real Madrid capped by the Champions League and Spanish league titles.
Spanish player Alexia Putellas won the ladies’s trophy for the second straight 12 months following one other standout season with Barcelona.
Benzema had his best season ever at Madrid, being the highest scorer in each leagues. He scored 44 times for Madrid, including 15 in Europe’s top competition, and equaled Raúl González because the club’s second-highest scorer behind Cristiano Ronaldo.
Benzema, at 34, became the oldest winner for the reason that first recipient in 1956, Stanley Matthews.
“Age is only a number for me,” he said. “People play until their later years now and I still have this burning desire. It is that this drive that has kept me going and never allowed me to let up.”
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Benzema won ahead of Sadio Mané and Manchester City playmaker Kevin De Bruyne. Mané played for Liverpool last season and joined Bayern Munich in the summertime.
“I’m really proud, it’s numerous work and a child’s dream come true,” Benzema said.
He succeeded Lionel Messi, who won the award for a record-extending seventh time last 12 months but was not among the many nominees this time after his first season with Paris Saint-Germain.
For the primary time this 12 months, the Ballon d’Or was based on achievements from the past season. It had previously been awarded based on performances throughout calendar years.
Awarded by France Football magazine, the Ballon d’Or has been given out to men for 66 years. The ladies’s trophy was created in 2018, and each were canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Benzema became the fifth Frenchman to win it after Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin and Zinedine Zidane, who was crowned in 1998, the 12 months France won its first World Cup.
Benzema was not a part of the France squad that triumphed on the 2018 World Cup in Russia but, barring an injury, will compete on the tournament in Qatar next month.
After nearly six years out following his involvement in a sex tape scandal, Benzema was recalled by France coach Didier Deschamps last 12 months ahead of the European Championship and has played recurrently since.
“There have been far more difficult moments for me, once I was not chosen (with France) and I didn’t hand over,” Benzema said after Zidane, his former coach at Madrid, handed him the trophy. “I’m really pleased with my profession. That is the Golden Ball of the people.”
Leading an attack that also included Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo, Benzema played a vital role last season to drive Madrid to a record-extending 14th European title, and his fifth since he joined from Lyon in 2009. The Frenchman was the tournament’s top scorer and located the online when it really mattered, with 10 of his goals within the knockout stages.
Putellas scored 42 goals and delivered 22 assists last season. She became the primary player to win the award twice.
With Barcelona, she won the Spanish League and reached the Champions League final. She has been sidelined since July after injuring her left knee and undergoing surgery on the eve of the Women’s European Championship.
“After I got injured I didn’t think I’d be here today, however it makes me proud to get recompense for all that arduous work,” she said. “I miss playing a lot and doing what I wish to do probably the most.”
Putellas beat out fellow forwards Beth Mead of Arsenal and England and Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia for the award on the ceremony in Paris. A panel of international journalists selected the winners.
In other awards, the Kopa Trophy for the very best under-21 player went to 18-year-old Barcelona midfielder Gavi, while Robert Lewandowski won the Gerd Müller award for the very best striker of the 12 months.
The Lev Yashin award for best goalkeeper went to Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois.
Ballon d’Or organizers added a humanitarian prize named after the late Brazil midfielder Socrates. The trophy went to Mané for his charity work in Senegal including constructing a hospital and faculty donations.
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