Ronaldo claims he deserve the Ballon d’Or & names Salah among favorites!

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo believes that he deserves to lift the 2018 Ballon d’Or award taking his tally to record sixth, by pipping 29 other contenders for the prestigious title. Ronaldo will be up against the likes of rivals Lionel Messi, former teammate Luka Modric & his favorite Mohamed Salah.

Ronaldo also added that Messi is unlikely to be termed as a favorite this time while calling for competition for the award from Modric, the two World-Cup winning French footballers and Liverpool star Mohamed Salah.

“I said many times, winning a sixth Ballon d’Or is not an obsession,” Ronaldo told France Football.

Both Ronaldo and Messi have bagged the trophy fives times over the last 10 years, but 2018 brings about a stronger competition while bringing few other players in the list of probable winners. While Modric had recently won the Golden Ball at the FIFA Wrld Cup 2018 for guiding Croatia to historic final and for a similar reason handed the FIFA Men’s player of the year award, both Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe have won the World Cup for France. For Ronaldo, he guided Real Madrid to third successive Champions League trophy before making a summer move to Juventus where he has been equally dominant as well.

Ronaldo had won Ballon d’or with Manchester United (2008) and four times with Real Madrid (2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017). If he lifts the trophy this time, he will be the first footballer to win the award six times and with three different clubs.