It's been 55 years since the last time a goalkeeper won the Ballon d'Or. Despite there were many extraordinary goalkeepers, only one that could win the title: Lev Yashin. Why is it hard for a goalkeeper to win the title?

Lev Yashin, the only goalkeeper who won the Ballon d'Or (Ria Novosti/Sputnik). Source: RT

Real Madrid and Croatia player Luka Modric won the Ballon d'Or after defeating other favorite candidates: Antoine Griezmann and Cristiano Ronaldo. And controversy emerged after Lionel Messi only finished fifth.

But if we look closer at it, in the top 10 of the Ballon d’Or nominations none of the players were goalkeepers. The best goalkeeper in the Ballon d'Or was Thibaut Courtois in 14th place.

You can see the partial result of the 2018 Ballon d'Or below.

1st: Luka Modric (CRO / Tottenham/Real Madrid)

2nd: Cristiano Ronaldo (POR / Real Madrid/Juventus)

3rd: Antoine Griezmann (FRA / Atletico Madrid)

4th Kylian Mbappe (FRA / PSG),

5th: Lionel Messi (ARG / Barcelona)

6th: Mohamed Salah (EGY / Liverpool)

7th: Raphael Varane (FRA / Real Madrid)

8th: Eden Hazard (BEL / Chelsea)

9th: Kevin De Bruyne (BEL / Manchester City)

10th: Harry Kane (ENG / Tottenham)

11th: N’Golo Kante (FRA / Chelsea)

12th: Neymar (BRA / PSG)

13th: Luis Suarez (URU / FC Barcelona)

14th: Thibaut Courtois (BEL / Real Madrid)

15th: Paul Pogba (FRA / Manchester United)

In the Ballon d'Or history, there was only one goalkeeper who won the title: Lev Yashin in 1963. You can see the full list of the Ballon d'Or winners since 1956 here. This fact makes me wonder, why the journalists don't choose goalkeeper as the best player? Why is it so hard for a goalkeeper to stand out as the best player?

Looking Back at Football History

To answer this, we may have to look back at the history of football itself. When football was discovered in the 19th century, the main concept of it was to score as many goals as possible to win. There was no goalkeeper, can you imagine that? But that was how they played football back then. There were guards, the last player on the line of defense. Their job was to sweep the ball and secured the goal area. But the concept of the goalkeeper who use hands to catch the ball was still unknown.

But football rules evolved, later the goalkeeper position introduced. But it was an unpopular position. Why? Because people wanted to score goals. As kids, we always wanted to play as a striker, didn't we? Because being a striker was way cooler than a goalkeeper, or a back. Because we wanted to score goals, our instinct as kids said that's what matters in football.

However, in modern football goalkeepers should no longer be underestimated. The goalkeeper has now become a position where attacks are built. Many attacks started from the goalkeepers. Modern goalkeepers are required to read the situation, play the tempo, build attacks and save the goal.

I believe it's because of our bias that we don't see goalkeepers won the Ballon d'Or anymore. It's time for us to end our bias towards goalscorer positions and start giving more credit to defensive players, especially goalkeepers.