2008 Ballon d'Or
Player Nationality Club
Karim Benzema France Lyon
Pepe Portugal Real Madrid
Luca Toni Italy Bayern Munich
Rafael van der Vaart Netherlands Real Madrid
Yuri Zhirkov Russia CSKA Moscow
Rankings
Rank Player Nationality Club Points 1 Cristiano Ronaldo Portugal Manchester United 446 2 Lionel Messi Argentina Barcelona 281 3 Fernando Torres Spain Liverpool 179 4 Iker Casillas Spain Real Madrid 133 5 Xavi Spain Barcelona 97 6 Andrey Arshavin Russia Zenit 64 7 David Villa Spain Valencia 55 8 Zlatan Ibrahimović Sweden Internazionale 30 9 Kaká Brazil Milan 29 10 Steven Gerrard England Liverpool 28 11 Marcos Senna Spain Villarreal 16 12 Emmanuel Adebayor Togo Arsenal 12 13 Wayne Rooney England Manchester United 11 14 Sergio Agüero Argentina Atlético Madrid 10 15 Frank Lampard England Chelsea 8 16 Franck Ribéry France Bayern Munich 7 17 Samuel Eto ' o Cameroon Barcelona 6 18 Gianluigi Buffon Italy Juventus 5 19 Michael Ballack Germany Chelsea 4 Cesc Fàbregas Spain Arsenal 4 21 Didier Drogba Ivory Coast Chelsea 3 Sergio Ramos Spain Real Madrid 3 Nemanja Vidić Serbia Manchester United 3 24 Edwin van der Sar Netherlands Manchester United 2 Ruud van Nistelrooy Netherlands Real Madrid 2 Additionally , five players were nominated but received no votes : [ 2 ]
The 2008 Ballon d'Or, given to the best football player in the world as judged by an international panel of sports journalists, was awarded on 2 December 2008.