Considered the favorite to win the 2022 Ballon d'Or, the French international Karim Benzema is among the 30 nominees for that award that France Football magazine will deliver on October 17.
In the third batch of nominees, the presence of the Brazilian Casemiro also stood out. Along with the midfielder, there was also the Brazilian Fabinho, the South Korean Son Heung-min and the Algerian Riyad Mahrez.
For this year Messi and Neymar were off the list. Meanwhile Cristiano Ronaldo despite an intermittent season with Manchester United is among the nominees.
Benzema, 34, is the clear favorite to succeed Leo Messi in the award both for his individual statistics (he is already the second best scorer in the history of Real Madrid), and collective statistics (winner of the Champions League, among other trophies) .
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This has been the third batch of 30 nominees released this Friday by France Football and that uses new evaluation criteria, including taking into account the season more than the calendar year and prioritizing individual results before collective ones.
In the previous rounds, the Brazilian Vinícius Júnior, the Colombian Luis Díaz, the Polish Robert Lewandowski, the Portuguese Bernardo Silva and the English Trent Alexander-Arnold appeared.
Also the Belgian Thibaut Courtois, the Portuguese Rafael Leao, the German Joshua Kimmich, the French Christopher Nkunku and the Egyptian Mohamed Salah.
EFE
