Lewandowski can win the Ballon d’Or back! Messi, on the other hand, may lose it, possible vote rigging under investigation

Robert Lewandowski has had an impressive football career. He has won the league title ten times – twice with Dortmund, eight times with Bayern. In the jersey of the Munich big club, he also dominated the Champions League in the 2019/20 season, four times lifting the trophy for the DFB Pokal winner above his head. However, the Ballon d’Or is still missing from his collection of achievements…

In addition to his team achievements, thePolish footballer also has a number of individual awards to his credit. Twelve times he has been named Footballer of the Year, twice he has won the FIFA Best Player trophy, and once he won the UEFA Best Player trophy. Twenty times he has been the competition’s top scorer.

However, he still lacks the Ballon d’Or in the showcase of his achievements, although he has clearly had his sights set on it in recent years. However, it has always been another name that has made it to the top step, in this case in 2021, when Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or.

Lewandowski’s best years in football were in 2020, when he achieved a treble with Bayern – a championship title, domestic cup and Champions League victories.

“Those were the best years of my career. A friend recently sent me some statistics showing that I scored 100 goals in 85 games back then,” Lewandowski told Sport Bild in an interview.

He was also top scorer in the Bundesliga and the Champions League. However, he was extremely unlucky in that France Football magazine decided not to award the Ballon d’Or that year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Lewandowski can still win the Ballon d’Or

Lewandowski, however, has a real chance of getting one Ballon d’Or back, just for 2021. As previously reported by French daily Le Monde, the Argentine legend’s debut, formerly at the service of Paris Saint-Germain, is under investigation.

This is due to suspicions of vote rigging, where the then editor-in-chief of France Football was alleged to have accepted a bribe from the Parisian club to influence the vote specifically in Messi’s favour.

“Of course I would like to win the Ballon d’Or one day. It’s not that I’m angry or sad that this trophy is still missing from my collection of achievements. But I feel like I would be next in any year,” the Warsaw native continued.

“The one from 2021 belongs to Messi. But I noticed that there is talk of a retrospective award for 2020. That was a special year for me. I was at my highest level, we won everything. Let me put it this way: If I got the Ballon d’Or for 2020 four years later, I certainly wouldn’t be offended. It would have been a great honour and I would have accepted the award,” Lewandowski added.

Le Monde, Sport Bild