This year’s race to the Ballon d’Or title is arguably one of the best in history since the tournament’s inception.

The dominance of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo seem to be fading and title winner for the previous year, Luka Modric, is not even in the race.

Also, the present favourites to win the trophy, are doing exceptionally well and are raising the bar with each passing match.

Last month, the football arena saw Messi lose his top spot and Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo was not even in Top 5.

Here is a look at where Messi and Ronaldo stand, who is leading the charts and who all feature in Top 10 rankings.

Note:- Any match played after 30th June, 2019 has not been taken into consideration for the calculation of these rankings.

Cristiano Ronaldo- sixth place

One of the first players to have witnessed a jump in their Ballon d’Or Power rankings is Cristiano Ronaldo. Although the Portuguese played only a couple of matches in June, both of them were important games and he had an important role to play in both the matches.

Ronaldo scored a hat-trick in the UEFA Nations League semi-finals and led his side to the finals.

In the finals, although he could not score or assist, his brilliant skills on the field helped his teammates to breach the defence of The Netherlands.

CR7 will now be back in action for his franchise Juventus in August and will play under their new manager Maurizio Sarri.

Now that he has no more matches this month, his ranking is sure to go down.

Lionel Messi- third place

From the top of the list to number three position within a month- although Messi did exceptionally well with Barcelona FC, his performance in national colours have not been impressive.

The standards that he has set for himself has made his good look worse since fans expect the best from him every time he takes the field.

Messi played four matches in June and his contribution for Argentina has been minimal, to say the least.

The Argentina national team were knocked out of the Copa America semi-final when they lost to Brazil 2-0. When they needed Messi to weave his magic he disappointed.

Many still believe, he deserves yet another trophy but as of now he is number three on the list.

 Virgil Van Dijk- first place

 The only player who has maintained his ranking in the race to Ballon d’Or barring Sadio Mane is Virgil Van Dijk. He has been in incredible form this year which has helped his side improve by leaps and bounds.

With his franchise Liverpool, he was the runner up in the Premier League before going on to lift the Champions League trophy.

With his national side Netherlands too, he managed to reach the finals but failed to clear the final hurdle.

Alisson Becker, his Liverpool teammate who will play in the much awaited Copa America Final, might replace Dijk at the top of the list if he plays well in the finals.

Other than that, there is no real threat for Dijk since Messi ‘s Argentina is already out of the tournament with him being totally out of colour.

Rankings