The 2020 Ballon d'Or award was cancelled by France Football due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday.
Back in 2012, Bleacher Report predicted the next 10 Ballon d'Or winners and you'd be surprised to find out that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain should win this year's prize.
What's more, the likes of Oscar, Mario Balotelli and Mesut Ozil should've won three out of the last eight Ballons d'Or, according to that prediction made by BR.
Here are the actual results and Bleacher's predictions:
- 2012: Prediction: Lionel Messi - Result: Lionel Messi;
- 2013: Prediction: Lionel Messi - Result: Cristiano Ronaldo;
- 2014: Prediction: Cristiano Ronaldo - Result: Cristiano Ronaldo;
- 2015: Prediction: Mesut Ozil - Result: Lionel Messi;
- 2016: Prediction: Mario Balotelli - Result: Cristiano Ronaldo;
- 2017: Prediction: Eden Hazard - Result: Cristiano Ronaldo;
- 2018 Prediction: Neymar - Result: Luka Modric;
- 2019: Prediction: Oscar - Result: Lionel Messi;
- 2020: Prediction: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain;
- 2021: Prediction: Iker Muniain.
As a reminder, Ozil has been Arsenal's benchwarmer for the past few seasons, Balotelli has gone from one of the word's most promising strikers to a Brescia flop and Oscar gave up his Chelsea career for Chinese mega-money in 2017.
Oxlade-Chamberlain and Muniain meanwhile still remain promising players despite being 26 and 27 respectively and let's be realistic - the pair has very little chance to win the Ballon d'Or anytime soon... or ever.
