The most nostalgic are convinced: football was clearly better before. You only need to look back at the Ballon d’Or rankings from twenty or thirty years ago to be convinced of this. There are few players who appeared in a Top 10 of that era who have not left a mark in the history of football. That of 2000 is the perfect illustration.
That year, Luis Figo won the holy grail by beating Zinedine Zidane to the post. Behind them were legends of the game like Andriy Shevchenko, Thierry Henry, Alessandro Nesta, Rivaldo, Gabriel Batistuta, Gaizka Mendieta, Raul Gonzalez, David Beckham and Paolo Maldini. Among others. A prize list which had nevertheless caused a lot of ink to flow.
Luis Figo and Zinedine Zidane during the Euro 2000 semi-final between Portugal and the France team.
The Portuguese, who celebrates his 53rd birthday this Tuesday, is indeed still often cited among the most contested winners in history. Author the previous season of 15 goals and 24 assists with Real Madrid, he had nothing to be ashamed of his personal statistics, but his record without a title had then raised the eyebrows of many observers.
The Ballon d’Or offered by Zinedine Zidane to Luis Figo
Seeing him win the Ballon d’Or in front of “Zizou” while Portugal was eliminated by the French team in the semi-final of the Euro, at a time when the number 10 of the Blues was
“at its peak” dixit Emmanuel Petit, had made people cringe. A huge scandal? A shameful theft? A nice gift, rather. That Zinedine Zidane himself had served him on a platter.
“Zidane gave Figo the Ballon d’Or because in 2000, in the month of November – right during the votes which were taking place at the time between November and early December – he headbutted a Hamburg player in the Champions League”remembers GĂ©rard Ejnes, former journalist for the magazine France Footballin the podcast
Aliotalk.
It was actually October 24, 2000, and the 1998 world champion had actually attacked Jochen Kientz, defender of HSV. Result: five match suspension. A red card which followed another, collected a month earlier against Deportivo La Coruna. Enough to tip the members of the Ballon d’Or jury in favor of the elegant Luis Figo.
“Fair play is one of the criteriaadds GĂ©rard Ejnes. It’s a shocking image, in the middle of the vote. Obviously he would have had it in 2000, Zidane. He finds himself 16 points behind Figo (181 points against 197, editor’s note). » Six years later, history repeated itself for “Zizou”, who saw the 2006 Ballon d’Or slip through his fingers for another header, this time to Marco Materazzi.
