France WC Failure may Make Ronaldo Favorite for Ballon d’Or

When the UEFA World Cup Play offs were announced, all the eyes were mainly on one fixture between Sweden and Portugal.
France were considered favorites to beat Ukraine comfortably and qualify for the World Cup. However, what happened last night was quite astonishing.
Les Blues played absolute pathetic game and Ukrainian improvised at home to beat French side 2-0 in the first leg. France have a mountain to climb in the second leg as they cannot really afford to concede an away goal that would mean they will have to score 4 to qualify.
Frank Ribery who had a fantastic year for Bayern winning the treble is in line to win his first Ballon d’Or prize but if France fail to qualify for the world’s biggest competition, he may as well suffer a major blow in achieving that dream.
In fact, France WC failure may make Cristiano Ronaldo favorite for Ballon d’Or prize BUT if all things remain constant.
Yes, last season Ronaldo did not win any big prize but same was the case with Messi who won the Ballon d’Or with a Copa Del Rey trophy last time around.
He broke goal scoring records on the way but surely it is a team game, trophies matter the most and failure to win the Champions league and losing La Liga crown to Ronaldo’s Madrid was pivotal. Baffling that it was not.
In 2012/2013, Ronaldo was far behind Messi as far as league goals are concerned but overall Ronaldo scored 62 goals for club and country where as Messi scored 64 goals.
This season though, Ronaldo has surpassed Messi in all departments. In 16 appearances, Messi has scored 14 goals and provided 4 assists.
On the other hand, Ronaldo has been in the form of his life, in 19 appearances, he has netted no less than 26 goals and provided 7 assists.
Moreover, Ronaldo has scored 14 Champions league goals in 2013 (8 in 4 appearances already this year), that is 5 more than any other player. He also scored the winner against Sweden in the first WC Play off game last night.
With the Argentine out with injury for two more months, Ronaldo can further improve that record before the winner of Ballon d’Or is announced in January.
If France qualify and sanity prevails, Ribery should still win it. However, as we are still not clear about the criteria because of previous results, what can be said?
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