Benzema DESTROYED his rivals as Ballon d'Or voting is revealed
The Frenchman registered one of the biggest wins in the award's history
Recent Ballon d'Or winner Karim Benzema defeated Sadio Mane by an incredible margin. The Frenchman had been the biggest candidate for the award since he wrapped up his impressive campaign with Real Madrid winning the UEFA Champions League, but quite to which extent he conquered voters it's incredible.
Karim Benzema won the 2022 Ballon d'Or by a landslide
Benzema's 44 goals for Real Madrid last season in all competitions, together with La Liga and Champions League titles, were enough to garner him 549 votes. That leaves him with an incredible margin of 356 to second placed Sadio Mane, who got a "meagre" 193 votes.
It's the second-largest victory in the award's history, trailing only Cristiano Ronaldo's triumph in 2016 by 429 votes. The Portuguese was noteworthy once again, although in this ocassion it was due to missing out on the top three for the first since since 2005, as well as getting no votes.
It somewhat mirrors what happened to his historic rival Lionel Messi. who also missed out for the first time since 2005, although in the case of the Argentine he was quite literally omitted completely from the list.
Benzema became the 8th player of Real Madrid to win the prestigious award
"To see this prize in front of me makes me really proud. It was a childhood dream for me and all the work I have done, I never gave up. I always had in my mind that anything was possible, when I was not in the France team I never stopped working hard", explained an emotional Karim Benzema during his speech, "I am really proud of my journey here. It was not easy, it was a difficult time and also for my family as well. To be standing here today for the first time, I am happy for my work and will keep going".
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