Franck Ribery has expressed his desire to win the Ballon d’Or in January and believes he works a lot harder than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Bayern Munich winger shone in his side’s 3-1 win against Manchester City this week, firing the Bavarians into the lead with just eight minutes gone.
Ribery has played a key role Bayern’s recent success. Munich finished the 2012/13 season with a historic treble, including the Champions League — beating German rivals Borussia Dortmund 2-1.
The Bavarians sit level on points at the top of the Bundesliga with Dortmund and maintained their 100% record in the Champions League with the win over City.
The impressive form of the winger has made him one of the favourites to stop Messi’s monopolisation of the Ballon d’Or — the Argentine has claimed the title for the previous four years.
The Frenchman, who has 76 international caps, claims he does more defending and provides more assists than Ronaldo and Messi.
“Compared to them, I work much harder. I do a lot more defending than Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and provide more assists,” Ribery told Kicker. “It would be fantastic to actually win the Fifa Ballon d’Or when you have a shot at winning it.
“I have even more confidence in myself than before and that shows on the pitch. I am on top of my game and score a lot of goals. I am really enjoying myself on the pitch.”
The winger has scored 36 times since the 2009/10 season, whilst Messi has netted 207 times and Ronaldo has 202 goals.
