The Ballon d'Or shortlist the last time Cristiano Ronaldo wasn't nominated

The Ballon d'Or is the biggest individual award in football and the shortlist causes quite a stir each year, arguably more so than the announcement of the winners.

In the men's Ballon d'Or, two names have been dominant for a very long time. Even when not winning it, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have always been firmly in the conversation over the past 20 years.

For the first time since 2003, though, Ronaldo has not made the list of male nominees. Having moved to Al Nassr in January, Ronaldo isn't in the European spotlight quite so much and wasn't at his best at Manchester United before the move happened.

2003 was a very long time ago in football terms, so here are the players he was up against when he received his first nomination for the Ballon d'Or.

Ronaldo had recently moved from Sporting CP to Manchester United when he was first nominated for a Ballon d'Or award in 2004. He was a tricky young winger who was clearly a raw but massive talent.

He received some votes to win the Ballon d'Or that year, getting one second-place vote, a third-place vote and two fourth-place votes. That meant he was joint-12th in the final ranking with Liverpool's Milan Barros. Andriy Shevchenko won the Ballon d'Or that year with two more votes than Deco while Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry and Theodoros Zagorakis rounded out the top five.

There were 50 nominees for the 2003 Ballon d'Or before Ronaldo was regarded as one of the best players in the world. 26 of them received votes to win the award while the remaining 24 couldn't manage a vote between them.

Player

Nationality

Club(s)

Pablo Aimar

Argentina

Valencia

Sol Campbell

England

Arsenal

Iker Casillas

Spain

Real Madrid

Christian Chivu

Romania

Ajax and Roma

Samuel Eto'o

Cameroon

Mallorca

Luis Figo

Portugal

Real