Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo has explained that he feels Barcelona forward Lionel Messi is the favourite to win this year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or award.
The Portuguese international, who has won the prestigious award three times, enjoyed a superb 2014/15 campaign.
Ronaldo scored 61 goals in 54 games last season, but Real Madrid failed no win any major silverware.
On the other hand, Messi’s 58 goals in 57 appearances for Barcelona last term helped the Catalans to win the treble, comprising of La Liga, the Champions League and the Copa del Rey.
And Ronaldo, who is the Champions League’s leading goalscorer with 82 strikes, believes the trophies make the Argentine favourite to win the FIFA Ballon d’Or for the fifth time.
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“To be honest I think Messi is going to win this year because this kind of trophy, it depends on votes”, he said on The Jonathan Ross Show.
“You win competitions, you win Champions League you win the league in terms of individual.
“I did probably the best season of my career which is good and I was the highest scorer in Europe [but] it’s all about votes, it’s difficult and to be honest I’m not very worried about that because as I said many times, I never thought I’d win three times to be honest.”
However, Ronaldo, who is Real Madrid’s all-time highest goalscorer, thinks he still has scope to win the FIFA Ballon d’Or over the coming years.
“Well I’m still young I think… I think I can, I want to play six, seven years more and I think I’m still able to win collective things because if you don’t win collective things, you cannot win individual awards”, he added.
Ronaldo first won coveted award in 2008, while playing for Manchester United before bagging it for the last two seasons in Real Madrid colours.
