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FOOTBALL

Ronaldo ‘furious’ to lose out to Modric in UEFA player of the year award

The Portuguese star, now with Juventus, is said to have thrown a tantrum at not having again won the award he has won three times in the previous four years.

Published: 31 August 2018 16:10 CEST
Ronaldo 'furious' to lose out to Modric in UEFA player of the year award
Do they know who I am? Photo: Francisco Leone/AFP.

Cristiano Ronaldo was hopping mad at losing out to Croatia star Luka Modric for the UEFA Player of the Year, Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri revealed on Friday August 30th.

Real Madrid and Croatia midfield star Modric beat his former teammate Ronaldo and Liverpool's Mohamed Salah to the prize which was awarded on Thursday in Monaco.

“Yesterday he (Ronaldo) was very angry, and it's only normal,” said Allegri. “He scored 15 goals in the Champions League and won the trophy with his teammates. 

“The attitude of Ronaldo shows how much he continues to strive and work to still be the best. This is an advantage for us.”

Ronaldo moved from Real Madrid to Juventus this summer. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP. 

Allegri added that the choice of Modric was “a personal choice” of those who voted “and, as such, must be respected.”

Ronaldo, 33, had the consolation of being awarded the prize for best striker chosen by journalists and Champions League and Europa League coaches from last season.

Modric's success, after he was named the best player at the World Cup, means that the 32-year-old should be among the favourites to win the Ballon d'Or, a prize dominated by Ronaldo and Lionel Messi over the last decade.

Real Madrid's Croatian midfielder Luka Modric (C) receives the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year award in Monaco on August 30th. Valery HACHE / AFP.

Ronaldo, a five-time winner of the world player of the year award, signed for Italian champions Juventus this summer from Real Madrid for €100 million ($116.5 million). The Portuguese superstar's agent Jorge Mendes slammed the decision to award Modric with the the UEFA Men's Player of the Year prize as “simply ridiculous”.

READ ALSO: Cristiano Ronaldo says 'adiós' to Real Madrid and 'ciao' to Juventus

“He scored 15 goals, carrying Real Madrid to the Champions League win once again,” Mendes told Portuguese daily Record. “This is not the winner, he's (Modric) the best player in the world in his position,” said Mendes. Ronaldo had won the UEFA award three times in the previous four years.

Ronaldo did however win UEFA Goal of the Season for his overhead kick against his current club Juventus for Real Madrid last season. 

READ MORE: Italy's footballers to pay tribute with 'Genoa in the heart' jerseys

READ MORE: Anger as Lazio fans call to ban women from front rows of football stadium

 

FOOTBALL

Putellas becomes second Spanish footballer in history to win Ballon d’Or

Alexia Putellas of Barcelona and Spain won the women's Ballon d'Or prize on Monday, becoming only the second Spanish-born footballer in history to be considered the best in the world, and claiming a win for Spain after a 61-year wait.

Published: 30 November 2021 09:55 CET
FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award.
FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award. Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Putellas is the third winner of the prize, following in the footsteps of Ada Hegerberg, who won the inaugural women’s Ballon d’Or in 2018, and United States World Cup star Megan Rapinoe, winner in 2019.

Putellas captained Barcelona to victory in this year’s Champions League, scoring a penalty in the final as her side hammered Chelsea 4-0 in Gothenburg.

She also won a Spanish league and cup double with Barca, the club she joined as a teenager in 2012, and helped her country qualify for the upcoming Women’s Euro in England.

Her Barcelona and Spain teammate Jennifer Hermoso finished second in the voting, with Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia coming in third.

It completes an awards double for Putellas, who in August was named player of the year by European football’s governing body UEFA.

But it’s also a huge win for Spain as it’s the first time in 61 years that a Spanish footballer – male or female – is crowned the world’s best footballer of the year, and only the second time in history a Spaniard wins the Ballon d’Or. 

Former Spanish midfielder Luis Suárez (not the ex Liverpool and Barça player now at Atlético) was the only Spanish-born footballer to win the award in 1960 while at Inter Milan. Argentinian-born Alfredo Di Stefano, the Real Madrid star who took up Spanish citizenship, also won it in 1959.

Who is Alexia Putellas?

Alexia Putellas grew up dreaming of playing for Barcelona and after clinching the treble of league, cup and Champions League last season, her status as a women’s footballing icon was underlined as she claimed the Ballon d’Or on Monday.

Unlike the men’s side, Barca’s women swept the board last term with the 27-year-old, who wears “Alexia” on the back of her shirt, at the forefront, months before Lionel Messi’s emotional departure.

Attacker Putellas, who turns 28 in February, spent her childhood less than an hour’s car journey from the Camp Nou and she made her first trip to the ground from her hometown of Mollet del Valles, for the Barcelona derby on January 6, 2000.

Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas (R) vies with VfL Wolfsburg's German defender Kathrin Hendrich
Putellas plays as a striker for Barça and Spain. GABRIEL BOUYS / POOL / AFP

Exactly 21 years later she became the first woman in the modern era to score in the stadium, against Espanyol. Her name was engraved in the club’s history from that day forward, but her story started much earlier.

She started playing the sport in school, against boys.

“My mum had enough of me coming home with bruises on my legs, so she signed me up at a club so that I stopped playing during break-time,” Putellas said last year.

So, with her parent’s insistence, she joined Sabadell before being signed by Barca’s academy.

“That’s where things got serious… But you couldn’t envisage, with all one’s power, to make a living from football,” she said.

After less than a year with “her” outfit, she moved across town to Espanyol and made her first-team debut in 2010 before losing to Barca in the final of the Copa de la Reina.

She then headed south for a season at Valencia-based club Levante before returning “home” in July 2012, signing for Barcelona just two months after her father’s death.

In her first term there she helped Barca win the league and cup double, winning the award for player of the match in the final of the latter competition.

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