Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have completely dominated world football for the past 15 years, scoring hundreds and hundreds of goals and winning trophy after trophy.
Between them, Messi and Ronaldo have picked up 12 Ballons d’Or – not to mention 14 national titles, 10 domestic cups, seven Champions Leagues and two continental crowns with their respective nations.
And on nine occasions, the Argentine and Portuguese superstars have finished as the top two in the running for football’s most prestigious individual award.
But what if the two greatest players of our generation – and two of the greatest of all time – had not existed? Who would have taken the Ballon d’Or in each of the years that one of them has won?
The football world would certainly look very different without them, so we’ve taken a look at who would have topped the podium in their place had they not been around.
2008 – Fernando Torres (Liverpool)
After finishing second and third to Kaka in 2007, 2008 represented the beginning of the era of Messi and Ronaldo domination, with Ronaldo topping the podium after winning the Champions League with Manchester United and Messi coming in second.
In third place that year was the new star of the Premier League and Spain’s Euro 2008-winning striker Torres.
Torres had moved to Liverpool in 2007, striking up an instant partnership with Steven Gerrard and thumping in 33 goals as the Reds reached the Champions League last four. He’d got off to a strong start in the 2008-09 season too, scoring a cracker against Sunderland on the opening day.
Most significantly, though, Torres had won that European Championship with his nation, scoring the only goal of the final against Germany with a classic, dinked finish.
READ: Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, and definitive proof of love at first sight
2009 – Xavi (Barcelona)
Another Ronaldo and Messi one-two and in third place was Messi’s magnificent Barcelona colleague Xavi.
The Spaniard had set the tempo for Pep Guardiola’s first great Barca side all through the 2008-09 campaign, controlling games and guiding his team to the Champions League title against Manchester United at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.
2010 – Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)
This was the one year between 2008 and 2017 that there wasn’t a Ronaldo and Messi one-two.
After a trophyless first season at Rela Madrid and a last-16 World Cup exit with Portugal, Ronaldo was a distant sixth, with Iniesta finishing second in the…
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