No Messi, Ronaldo In Ballon d'Or 2024 Shortlist: The most beautiful era in football is coming to an end, as both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo miss out on thr Ballon d'Or shortlist for the first time in 21 years.


The Inter Miami captain is the reigning winner of the Ballon d'Or and with his omission from the list, we will be crowning a new winner at this year's ceremony.


The last time both these players did not feature in the list was back in 2003, when Juventus' Pavel Nedved won the award over the likes of Thierry Henry of Arsenal and Paolo Maldini of AC Milan.


Back in the days, the shortlist used to be of 50 players, and in that year's list, only 26 nominees ended up opening their account for votes, rest 24 of them could not even receive one vote.


Ballon d'Or 2003 Complete List Of Nominees



  • Pavel Nedved - Juventus/Czech Republic

  • Thierry Henry - Arsenal/France

  • Paolo Maldini - AC Milan/Italy

  • Andriy Shevchenko - AC Milan/Ukraine

  • Zinedine Zidane - Real Madrid/France

  • Ruud van Nistelrooy - Manchester United/Netherlands

  • Raul - Real Madrid/Spain

  • Roberto Carlos - Real Madrid/Brazil

  • Gianluigi Buffon - Juventus/Italy

  • David Beckham - Manchester United/Real Madrid/England

  • Ronaldo 'Phenomeno' Nazario - Real Madrid/Brazil

  • Henrik Larsson - Celtic/Sweden

  • Alessandro del Piero - Juventus/Italy

  • Dida - AC Milan/Brazil

  • Roy Makaay - Deportivo La Coruna/Bayern Munich/Netherlands

  • Alessandro Nesta - AC Milan/Italy

  • Deco - Porto/Portugal

  • Nihat Kahveci - Real Sociedad/Turkey

  • Francesco Totti - Roma/Italy

  • Michael Ballack - Bayern Munich/Germany

  • Zlatan Ibrahimovic - Ajax/Sweden

  • Filippo Inzaghi - AC Milan/Italy

  • Jan Koller - Borussia Dortmund/Czech Republic

  • Adrian Mutu - Parma/Chelsea/Romania

  • Ronaldinho - PSG/Barcelona/Brazil

  • Francesco Toldo - Inter/Italy

  • Pablo Aimar - Valencia/Argentina

  • Sol Campbell - Arsenal/England

  • Iker Casillas - Real Madrid/Spain

  • Christian Chivu - Ajax/Roma/Romania

  • Samuel Eto'o - Mallorca/Cameroon

  • Luis Figo - Real Madrid/Portugal

  • Giovane Elber - Bayern Munich/Brazil

  • Ludovic Giuly - Monaco/France

  • Oliver Kahn - Bayern Munich/Germany

  • Patrick Kluivert - Barcelona/Netherlands

  • Darko Kovacevic - Real Sociedad/Serbia & Montenegro

  • Claude Makelele - Real Madrid/Chelsea/France

  • Michael Owen - Liverpool/England

  • Pauleta - Bordeaux/PSG/Portugal

  • Robert Pires - Arsenal/France

  • Michel Salgado - Real Madrid/Spain

  • Paul Scholes - Manchester United/England

  • Lilian Thuram - Juventus/France

  • Hatem Trabelsi - Ajax/Tunisia

  • David Trezeguet - Juventus/France

  • Patrick Vieira - Arsenal/France

  • Christian Vieri - Inter/Italy

  • Gianluca Zambrotta - Juventus/Italy

  • Sylvain Wiltord - Arsenal/France