It was all his. Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski deserved the 2020 Ballon d’Or award, but they decided not to hold the ceremony.
In a discussion with former England player Rio Ferdinand on his podcast, Lewandowski expressed his dissatisfaction with France Football’s choice to suspend the 2020 award while acknowledging that competitive leagues and the Champions League continued without interruption.
“At the time I didn’t understand why. All the leagues were being played, the Champions League was being played, and for me, it was like, why?” said Lewandowski.
He suggests that external business interests, not necessarily the global pandemic, played a role in this decision, pitting sporting excellence against commercial ventures.
“I know that football works sometimes like politics because if you have football, you have business. And if you have a business, you have politics,” he adds.
During the 2019-20 season, Lewy scored a remarkable 55 goals while leading his team to the treble. He scored 15 goals in 10 Champions League matches alone.
Unfortunately, a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic scuppered his 2020 Ballon d’Or plans.
The following year, the award also seemed a shoo-in.
Lewandowski roughly equaled his prolific contributional output during the 2020-2021 season. He won four astounding trophies at Bayern Munich while bagging 47 strikes and 15 assists in 44 matches. His 41 Bundesliga goals broke the single-season record. Lewy was unstoppable. The only trophy missing was the Champions League, which he won the year before. Give the man a break, no? Not so fast.
But Messi took the 2021 Ballon d’Or award home, the number 10’s record-setting 7th. Despite Lewandowski outscouring Messi by 13 goals (Messi still had 40), the Argentine finally got off the running with a long-awaited international trophy at Copa America.
Should they award Lewandowski the Ballon d’Or after the fact?
So would the Polish striker accept the award four years later, Ferdinand probed?
“Of course,” Lewandowski said.
Who wouldn’t? He deserved it. Lewandowski was at the peak of his career, outperforming even Messi and Ronaldo in that campaign. Amazingly, he could still nonetheless gain redemption this season.
36-year-old Lewandowski continues to show no signs of slowing down. The Barcelona striker leads La Liga in goals this term with 14 strikes in 13 matches. The Pole is ranked second behind Mohamed Salah in the 2025 Ballon d’Or rankings.
