The World Cup has often strengthened a player\u2019s case for the Ballon d\u2019Or. Across successive tournaments, a handful of individuals converted international triumph into the sport\u2019s highest individual prize in the same year.<\/p>\n
Bobby Charlton received the Ballon d\u2019Or on Dec. 27 following England\u2019s 1966 World Cup success. A decade after Stanley Matthews won the inaugural prize, Charlton\u2019s performances for England were decisive, including a semi-final in which he struck a brace against Eus\u00e9bio\u2019s Portugal. The deciding vote was cast by the Portuguese journalist Fernando Couto e Santos from Mundo Desportivo.<\/p>\n
Paolo Rossi\u2019s Italy story spans two tournaments. Three goals at the 1978 World Cup earned him a place in FIFA\u2019s Team of the Tournament, but Italy finished fourth and he placed fifth in that year\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or. Four years later Rossi scored six goals across the final three matches in Spain, including the opener in a 3\u20131 victory over West Germany in the final. Marco Tardelli and Alessandro Altobelli also scored in that final.<\/p>\n
Lothar Matth\u00e4us powered West Germany\u2019s 1990 charge. Already established through success with Bayern Munich and then Inter, he scored four times at the tournament, including a decisive penalty against Czechoslovakia, and finished runner-up for the competition\u2019s Golden Ball to Salvatore Schillaci. Matth\u00e4us prevailed in the Ballon d\u2019Or vote over Schillaci and Andreas Brehme.<\/p>\n
Zinedine Zidane arrived at the 1998 World Cup after claiming the Serie A title with Juventus, was sent off in the group stage against Saudi Arabia, then delivered two first-half headers to defeat Brazil in the final as France won. Zidane collected both Player of the Match and the Ballon d\u2019Or.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo\u2019s 2002 World Cup haul \u2014 four group goals, a last-16 strike against Belgium, the semi winner against T\u00fcrkiye and a two-goal final against Germany \u2014 was followed by a move to Real Madrid and Ballon d\u2019Or success later that year.<\/p>\n
Fabio Cannavaro, one of only three defenders to win the Ballon d\u2019Or, led Italy\u2019s resilient defence in 2006 after Juventus\u2019s 2005\u201306 title was later revoked. Italy kept multiple clean sheets en route to a final settled on penalties after Zinedine Zidane\u2019s sending off; Cannavaro joined FIFA\u2019s All-Star Team and won the Ballon d\u2019Or.<\/p>\n
The vote\u2019s switch to a seasonal cycle and the winter scheduling of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar meant Lionel Messi did not receive his record-extending eighth Ballon d\u2019Or until late 2023. Messi scored five goals leading up to the final, recovered from an opening defeat to Saudi Arabia, then scored twice in the 3\u20133 final with France and helped Argentina to victory on penalties under Lionel Scaloni before his retirement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seven men have combined World Cup victory with a Ballon d’Or in the same year, across decades. True.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,646],"tags":[1064,1033],"class_list":["post-4951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-trophy","tag-ballon-dor-2","tag-brazilian-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}