All eyes will be on the Ballon d’Or gala ceremony where the best of the best in terms of all round football perfection will be announced and Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar are set to take centre stage on this illustrious award night.
Monday night ceremony will be the 60th edition of the prestigious award – the top prize in terms of the individual accolades a player can win.
Soccer greats like Zinedine Zidane, Johan Cryuff, Fabio Cannavaro, Marco Van Basten and many others have won this award.
The award ceremony will be held in Zurich, Switzerland at 17:30GMT and a host of other awards are set to be given out such as the FIFPro World XI – Coach of the year – Fifa Puskas Award – World’s best female player award.
This year seems to be the hardest year to predict the player who will receive the coveted award because all three nominees have shared a similar level of individual success in the past year.
Messi is gunning for his fifth award that is already quite mercurial in itself considering the fact that he’s the only player ever to have won four (and he did it four times in a row).
Ronaldo has gotten the better of him in the last two editions, but Messi will be looking to clinch it once more and extend his individual accolades.
Also, there remains a substantial possibility that may see the ‘boy wonder’ Neymar snatch the award from right under the noses of his teammate and Portuguese counterpart.
Neymar has been touted to one day win the award ever since he was just a teenager plying his trade in Santos; it could finally be time for the Brazilian revolution to start once again as many Brazilian legends have claimed the award in the past decade.
Regardless of the outcome, the Ballon d’Or gala ceremony will still be a fun spectacle to behold although many may have a preferred candidate in terms of the winner of the award.
Nonetheless, it is set to be an exciting award show – one that every fan of the beautiful game should watch.