One must consider the sheer presence of Manuel Neuer (L) on the three player shortlist as a massive achievement. (Source: AP)

It’s been a while since Cristinao Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have been challenged for their spots on the top of the Balon D’Or list of candidates and as such people have a hard time believing that anyone else has a realistic shot at winning the most prestigious individual honour in world football.

Another year has come and gone and still the two maintain their domination with much of the football community split down the middle in the debate about which one of them is actually better. The question has been asked many a time and has had way too many opinions but alas, no definitive results have been established. FIFA has told the world that this year they will have to settle for Ronaldo but ardent Messi supports will remind us of the Argentinean maestro’s superiority as soon as he breaks another record or two.

Is it possible though that the football community has already decided that there will be no better players while these two are still around or is there even the smallest of possibilities that the world or even FIFA may have overlooked a certain German goalkeeper?

German international Manuel Neuer may have been nominated alongside Messi and Ronaldo in the Ballon D’Or but one gets the feeling that this may be more a case of making up the numbers than anything else since no one really gave the German World Cup winner an even chance of winning the award.

Despite his incredible performance in goal for Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich alongside his World Cup winning stint in the German national team, the Bayern Munich Behemoth was largely ignored in the build up to the FIFA Ballon D’Or and not surprisingly finished behind both Ronaldo and Messi in the final list.

Despite all this, one must consider the sheer presence of Manuel Neuer on the three player shortlist to be a massive achievement since goalkeepers hardly ever make the cut. The last goalkeeper to actually be considered for the FIFA World Player of the Year (Ballon D’Or) was also a German more than a decade ago – Oliver Khan (who finished 2nd behind Brazil’s Ronaldo) and the only Goalkeeper to have ever won the Ballon D’Or was Russian legend Lev Yashin back in 1963.

He may not score 50 goals a season but, is his contribution to the World Cup winning German national team and a Bundesliga win not enough to merit an award, which in recent years has just served as a reminder of Messi and Ronaldo’s dominance over world football. Gone are the days where football was a team game, gone are the days when the beautiful game didn’t just mean brilliance on one end of the pitch, gone are the days when tackling was known as an art and goalkeeping as a responsibility beyond all. At this point it’s just a competition for who gets the goals, who breaks the records and who wins the FIFA Ballon D’Or.

It seems then that football has taken a backseat to the Messi vs Ronaldo saga.

(Rishab Darbari is an intern at indianexpress.com)