Antoine Griezmann Backs Cristiano Ronaldo for Ballon D'Or After Euro 2016 Win

Antoine Griezmann believes Cristiano Ronaldo’s success with Real Madrid and Portugal will inevitably see him clinch the Ballon d’Or next year.

At club level, Ronaldo’s goals helped Los Blancos to glory in the 2015-16 UEFA Champions League, with the forward netting the winning penalty in the shootout triumph against Atletico Madrid.

On Sunday, despite an early injury for the talisman, the 31-year-old lifted the trophy as Portugal were crowned kings of European football after a win over France.

Having lost out to Ronaldo in both of those finals, Griezmann was resigned to not winning the individual prize, too.

“The Ballon d’Or? Cristiano has won it,” he said following France’s loss, per Football Espana. “I wanted to win the trophy and then maybe think about the Ballon d’Or. Now it’s no longer in my head. Cristiano won the most important competitions, so I think it’s his.”

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The man himself also admitted his recent achievements will help him in pursuit of FIFA’s biggest individual accolade, although he was adamant the accolade is not his main goal.

“This victory will help me, but I’m not obsessed by it,” he said of the Ballon d’Or, per AS and DPA.

It has been a spell to remember for Ronaldo, even by the standards he has set in his own remarkable career so far.

The Madrid man has always lacked a defining moment prior to this campaign, though. In the Champions League final he got it with the winning penalty, and while he wasn’t on the field when Portugal did get over the line in Paris, his displays earlier in the competition lifted the team to a higher standard.

As noted by Bleacher Report UK, even when he was on the sidelines for the final stages of the Euros, he played some part:

While football is about winning trophies as a team, the standards set by Ronaldo and Barcelona man Lionel Messi have given the Ballon d’Or new significance.

Messi has won the title on five occasions, the most recent coming at the last awards ceremony following on from a treble of titles for the Blaugrana. Ronaldo has won the title three times, although he will be the big favourite to move within one of his rival after such a prosperous spell.

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Had Griezmann, who finished top scorer at Euro 2016, been on the winning side on Sunday night, he would have certainly been in with a shout, having enjoyed a brilliant campaign with Atletico, too. 

Despite the defeats, Miguel Delaney of ESPN FC believes that the Frenchman can be proud of the effort he’s put in:

The award for the best player in the world should in theory be determined based on consistency, meaning the likes of Messi, Griezmann and even Barcelona’s Luis Suarez, who had an outstanding end to the La Liga campaign, should all be in the reckoning. But in major tournament years, it typically goes to the player that has the biggest say in the key moments.

Ronaldo has done that, with crucial contributions in the Champions League and the European Championship. The Real Madrid man has cemented his legacy as one of the game’s all-time greats as a result, and while European glory didn’t come in the way the forward would have dreamed, it’s an international honour that sets him aside from his great rival.