Robert Lewandowski summarizes the 2016 Ballon d’Or in four emojis

Perhaps you missed the news because it’s so predictable, but yesterday France Football magazine awarded Cristiano Ronaldo his fourth Ballon d’Or ahead of the other default winner favorite, Lionel Messi (745 points to 316). Ronaldo notably won the Champions League with Real Madrid and Euro 2016 with Portugal, and Messi did not.

Lewandowski finished sixteenth with a whopping 3 points, behind teammate Arturo Vidal (14th, 4 points - granted, he led Chile to victory at the Copa America) and a full five places behind Dortmund’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (11th, 7 points), who led Dortmund to . . . second place in the League and DFB Cup behind . . . Bayern and Lewandowski . . . while scoring fewer goals . . .

Yeah.

In a fascinating twist of events for fans of Real Madrid, Ronaldo stands a chance of winning effectively two Ballon d’Ors: since FIFA and France Football no longer award the Ballon d’Or jointly (the erstwhile “FIFA Ballon d’Or”), FIFA will declare a World Player of the Year in January. I, for one, can hardly wait to find out who wins!