{"id":35705,"date":"2017-12-08T15:55:03","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T10:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=35705"},"modified":"2017-12-08T15:55:03","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T10:55:03","slug":"ronaldo-pips-messi-to-win-ballon-dor-for-fifth-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=35705","title":{"rendered":"Ronaldo pips Messi to win Ballon d&#8217;Or for fifth time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>PARIS Dec 08 (TNS):<\/strong> Portugal\u2019s Cristiano Ronaldo was awarded the Ballon d\u2018Or for world player of the year on Thursday for a joint-record fifth time, going level with eternal rival and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi as the player to have won the prize the most times.<\/p>\n<p>The Real Madrid forward won the award \u2014 handed out by magazine France Football \u2014 for the second consecutive year having led his side to the La Liga title with 25 goals and a successive Champions League crown, netting 12 goals including two in the 4-1 win over Juventus in the final.<\/p>\n<p>Ronaldo collected the trophy in a glitzy ceremony at the Eiffel Tower in the French capital, presented by former France player David Ginola.<\/p>\n<p>Messi came second while Paris St Germain forward Neymar Jr \u2014 the most expensive player in the world \u2014 came third.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Another dream come true. Unbelievable feeling. Thanks to my family, friends, teammates, coaches and everyone that stood by my side throughout the years.??? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/A9jyYswePD\">pic.twitter.com\/A9jyYswePD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Cristiano\/status\/938878078562045955?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 7, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Veteran Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon finished fourth and Real midfielder Luka Modric came fifth.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea and France midfielder N\u2018Golo Kante was the highest ranked Premier League player, coming eighth, while Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s Harry Kane \u2014 ranked 10th \u2014 was the only English player to make it into the top 10.<\/p>\n<p>Ronaldo \u2014 who, this year, also helped the national side qualify for the World Cup in Russia next year \u2014 won his first Ballon d\u2018Or in 2008 while with Manchester United and collected it again in 2013, 2014, and 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old was last month named the Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player in the global soccer body\u2019s own awards ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>The Ballon d\u2018Or was first awarded in 1956 and was partnered with FIFA from 2010 to 2015, until becoming its own entity once again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PARIS Dec 08 (TNS): Portugal\u2019s Cristiano Ronaldo was awarded the Ballon d\u2018Or for world player of the year on Thursday for a joint-record fifth time, going level with eternal rival and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi as the player to have won the prize the most times. The Real Madrid forward won the award \u2014 handed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[330],"class_list":["post-35705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35707,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35705\/revisions\/35707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}