Eden Hazard nominated for 2017 Ballon d’Or

The full list of 30 nominees has now been released by France Football for the 2017 Ballon d’Or; we had to wait all the way until the final batch of nominees — they released them in six batches of five players — to see Eden Hazard’s name. Chelsea thus finish with two nominees, Hazard and Kanté, with perhaps a harsh snub for Premier League Golden Glove-winner, Thibaut Courtois.

Chelsea’s nominations certainly reflect a much better season at Stamford Bridge than the year before, when for the first time since 2011, the Blues did not receive a single nomination. Other than that yeah, Hazard has now been nominated each year he’s been at Chelsea, though he has yet to finish higher than eighth (in 2015). Chelsea’s best-ever finish in this award was Frank Lampard in 2005, when he finished a distant second to Barcelona’s Ronaldinho.

The winner of the 2017 Ballon d’Or (not to be confused with the 2017 FIFA Best awards) will be revealed in a couple months, at the start of December. All eyes will be on Cristiano Ronaldo, to see whether he can equal Lionel Messi’s record five wins. (Spoiler alert: probably.)

The full list of 30 nominees are:

1. Paulo Dybala (Juventus)
2. N’Golo Kanté (Chelsea)
3. Marcelo (Real Madrid)
4. Luka Modrić (Real Madrid)
5. Neymar (Barcelona, PSG)
6. Luis Suarez (Barcelona)
7. Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)
8. Jan Oblak (Atlético Madrid)
9. Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool)
10. Dries Mertens (Napoli)
11. Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City)
12. Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
13. David De Gea (Manchester United)
14. Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur)
15. Edin Dzeko (AS Roma)
16. Antoine Griezmann (Atlético Madrid)
17. Toni Kroos (Real Madrid)
18. Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus)
19. Sadio Mané (Liverpool)
20. Radamel Falcao (AS Monaco)
21. Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
22. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (BVB)
23. Edinson Cavani (PSG)
24. Mats Hummels (Bayern Munich)
25. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid)
26. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
27. Eden Hazard (Chelsea)
28. Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus, AC Milan)
29. Isco (Real Madrid)
30. Kylian Mbappé (Monaco, PSG)