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Granit Xhaka made it to 16th place at the Ballon d'Or.
Keystone
It was close at the Ballon d'Or awards. But the top two were well ahead, as the published points distribution shows. National team captain Granit Xhaka received a lot of points from some journalists.
Spain's European champion Rodri won the prestigious Ballon d'Or award by a relatively narrow margin ahead of Brazil's Vinícius Júnior. Rodri scored 1170 points in the journalists' vote, according to the points distribution published by the French trade magazine "L'Équipe". Vinícius Jr. received 1129 points. The third-placed Englishman Jude Bellingham missed the 1000-point mark with 917.
Rodri's victory did not go down well at all with Vinícius Júnior's club Real Madrid and the Brazilian's fans. Real boycotted the award ceremony in Paris on October 28.
One journalist from each of the top 100 countries in the world rankings was eligible to vote. Ten players (from a list of 30 professionals) were selected and had to be sorted into a separate ranking list. The best-placed player received 15 points, the last-placed player one point.
Granit Xhaka, a Swiss player, was also among the 30 nominees. The national team captain collected a total of 60 points and finished in an impressive 16th place. 14 journalists voted Xhaka into the top 10, with two of them even putting him on the podium: German "Kicker" chief reporter Karlheinz Wild and Japan's Shûichi Tamura (Sports Graphic Number) ranked Xhaka third.
The Swiss representative Daniel Visentini from "La Tribune de Genève" did not vote for his compatriot. He gave Vinicius the most points, ahead of Rodri and Bellingham.
Two Swiss goalkeepers made it into the top ten: Yann Sommer (6th place, 51 points) and Gregor Kobel (10th, 20 points). Kobel was even voted the best goalie in the world by Luxembourg journalist Jeff Kettenmeyer. In the end, Emiliano Martinez (276) came out on top relatively clearly ahead of Unai Simon (213) and Andriy Lunin (112).
With material from DPA.
