PARIS: Ousmane Dembélé won the Ballon d’Or for leading Paris Saint-Germain to its first Champions League title and Aitana Bonmatí received the women’s award for a third successive year on Monday.
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Dembélé succeeded Manchester City midfielder Rodri to become the sixth Frenchman to win it after Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin, Zinedine Zidane and Karim Benzema.
Bonmatí won ahead of her Spain teammate Mariona Caldentey. She’s only the third player in the award’s history to win three in a row after Platini (1983–85) and Lionel Messi (2009-12).
The award capped a remarkable turn of fortune for Dembélé, who at one point last season was snubbed by PSG coach Luis Enrique for disciplinary reasons. But once repositioned as a No. 9, he became a scoring machine and was inspirational in PSG’s historic Champions League campaign. The French club also completed a quadruple last season.
