Ballon d'Or: He may be past his peak, but this fourth award shows how far Cristiano Ronaldo has come

There's no doubt that Ronaldo is nearing the end of a long and successful purple patch but his fourth Ballon d'Or award will serve as a reminder of the vital leadership he showcased in 2016

(AFP)

Cristiano Ronaldo’s fourth Ballon d’Or is very different from his first three. Those times – 2008, 2013 and 2014 – Ronaldo won the award for its official reason, being the best footballer in the world. Those were the years he pushed ahead of Lionel Messi and, even given the electioneering of the Ronaldo camp, no-one could dispute his claim.

But not this year. Ronaldo has not been the best footballer in the world in 2016, not even close. Messi, of course, has been better. Gareth Bale has been better. Antoine Griezmann has been better. Kevin de Bruyne, after his knee ligament injury in January, has done more on the field for his teams. Riyad Mahrez has made more moments of individual brilliance.

Ronaldo has lost some of that physical edge that made him the force that he was for so long. That is very understandable, for a player who turns 32 in February and has played well over 800 games for club and country in his unique career so far. The burst, the leap and the drive are not quite what they were.

2016, in fact, has been the first year when it has been clear that the Ronaldo peak is over. The longest purple patch in sporting history, dating back to the 2006 World Cup and Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, has now given way to the natural process of ageing and decline. To see Ronaldo struggle to impact the Champions League final, before his eventual spot-kick, was to see a player no longer able to shred any defence at will.

But that Champions League final, and the even less likely events in France over the following six weeks, were why Ronaldo won it. There has always been a suspicion that he is not a team player, a claim backed up by the relative paltriness of his team trophies compared to his individual ones: three league titles and one Champions League at United, one league and one Champions League at Real Madrid, before this May.

All this changed this summer. The third Champions League brings him level with Messi but after that he did something Messi has yet to do, dragging his team to victory at a major international tournament. Ronaldo was not the best player at the Euros, but he was the most important one, acting as the father for Fernando Santos’ young side, giving them the inspiration that transformed them as a group.

The sight of Ronaldo going off in tears with a knee injury in the final, before returning to coach the team from the touchline, will be the definitive image from a career that has already provided so many other great moments. It was a triumph of team spirit, selflessness and leadership, not qualities he was renowned for but qualities he revealed to the world in Paris on 10 July.

Ronaldo has been once again crowned the winner of the Ballon d'Or (Getty)

The Ballon d’Or can never be about pure individual brilliance, because in a sport like football such a thing is impossible to measure. The contrast between the award’s individualism, and football’s team ethic, is why men as different as Jose Mourino and Arsene Wenger both have so little time for it.

But if the Ballon d’Or is to mean anything, it has to build in the importance of players to their teams. This year Ronaldo lost his claim to be the best player from Europe, something that he was for a decade but will never be again. But he led two teams to being European champions, the second of which was a total shock. That is a very different achievement from stacking up goals like Ronaldo used to. In a year when he lost his edge, he has gained another.