Chelsea stars Kante and Hazard are nominated for 2018 Ballon D'or

2018 Ballon d’Or nominees has been released and this time the award will take place in Paris on 3rd December 2018. The Ballon d'or has been  dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo over the past decade (5 times winners, each), but as we saw with FIFA’s  the best award going to Luka Modric, 2018 could bring a changing of the guard.

Two Chelsea players who will be hoping that is indeed the case are Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante, both of whom are nominated for the second consecutive year. Kante finished 8th and Hazard 19th in last year’s field of 30 nominees. 

These are the 30 nominees for the 2018 Ballon d’Or :

1.     Sergio Aguero (Argentina / Manchester City)

2.     Alisson (Brazil / Roma & Liverpool)

3.     Gareth Bale (Wales / Real Madrid)

4.     Karim Benzema (France / Real Madrid)

5.     Edinson Cavani (Uruguay / PSG)

6.     Thibaut Courtois (Belgium / Chelsea & Real Madrid)

7.     Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal / Real Madrid & Juventus)

8.     Kevin De Bruyne (Belgium / Manchester City)

9.     Roberto Firmino (Brazil / Liverpool)

10. Diego Godin (Uruguay / Atlético Madrid)

11. Antoine Griezmann (France / Atlético Madrid)

12. Eden Hazard (Belgium / Chelsea)

13. Isco (Spain / Real Madrid)

14. Harry Kane (England / Tottenham)

15. N’Golo Kante (France / Chelsea)

16. Hugo Lloris (France / Tottenham)

17. Mario Mandzukic (Croatia / Juventus)

18. Sadio Mané (Senegal / Liverpool)

19. Marcelo (Brazil / Real Madrid)

20. Kylian Mbappé (France / PSG)

21. Lionel Messi (Argentina / Barcelona)

22. Luka Modric (Croatia / Real Madrid)

23. Neymar (Brazil / PSG)

24. Jan Oblak (Slovenia / Atletico Madrid)

25. Paul Pogba (France / Manchester United)

26. Ivan Rakitic (Croatia / Barcelona)

27. Mohamed Salah (Egypt / Liverpool)

28. Sergio Ramos (Spain / Real Madrid)

29. Luis Suarez (Uruguay / Barcelona)

30. Raphael Varane (France / Real Madrid