The twenty-sixth winner of the "Golden Ball" - Karl-Heinz Rummenigge

The twenty-sixth winner of the "Golden Ball" - Karl-Heinz Rummenigge

Second consecutive triumph for the Bayern Munich striker

After the most emphatic victory in the Ballon d'Or ranking in 1980, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge won the award for the second time in a row a year later. The victory of the Bayern Munich striker is again convincing, although not by much, but it is a fact that he continues to increase his goals for the Bavarian giants and does not stop impressing on European grounds.

Rummenigge collected 106 points, which is 16 less than the previous year. Second in the standings is his teammate Paul Breitner. The defensive player has 64 points, which again tells us that Karl-Heinz was without competition in the poll. Third remains Bernd Schuster, second from last year. The Barcelona midfielder collects only 39 points, but for the second year in a row he is in the top three.

Twenty-six journalists have the right to vote. Each of the countries that are members of the European Football Central has its own representative. 17 of them believe that Rummenigge should once again grab the biggest individual prize in football on the Old Continent. Five put it in the second position, and one - in the fifth. Four are of the opinion that Breitner should become the fourth player from West Germany to win the award. For seven of those entitled to vote, he is second, according to four - third and according to two - second.

Schuster, on the other hand, has serious competition for the prestigious third position in the Ballon d'Or voting in 1981 and is only 3 points ahead of Michel Platini, who impressed again for his Saint-Etienne, but is just short of seeing him in the top 3. Rounding out the top five is 1975 award winner and last non-Bundesliga player to win the accolade, Oleg Blokhin, who is again having a very strong campaign for his Dynamo Kyiv side. The guard of Juventus and the national team of Italy Dino Zoff is also in the top six. And in 1981 there was not a single Bulgarian representative.

Rummenigge is the Bundesliga's top scorer again. This time, however, his goals increased from 26 to 29, but with the clarification that some of them were also scored in the 1980s. With his goals, the ever-increasing striker helped Bayern Munich to a more convincing triumph in the domestic championship. The Bavarians win by 4 points ahead of the second Hamburger, and of all 89 goals scored by the champions, only 60 were not by Rummenigge. In CASH, Bayern reached the semi-finals, but were stopped by Liverpool to lose a match. Karl-Heinz's goal at the Olympiastadion in the second leg proved to be not enough as five minutes earlier Raymond Kenedy had scored a valuable away goal as the Reds triumphed in the final against Real Madrid. However, Rummenigge is among the three top scorers in the race for the European Champions Cup. He has six goals, the same as Thero McDermott and Graeme Souness of the award-winning team. The three are only one goal ahead of Tsvetan Yonchev from CSKA Sofia.

Rummenigge scored a total of 39 goals in the 1980/81 season, and until the end of 1981 he continued to be the main scorer of his team. Three goals were scored by him against the Swedish Oster in the first round of the KESH, but in the clashes with Benfica, and until the end of the campaign, he was replaced by Dieter Hoenes as the leading scorer of the Bavarians. In the "Golden Boot" ranking, Rummenigge remains third behind Tibor Niilasi, who has more goals and behind Georgi Slavkov. The Bulgarian, player of Trakia Plovdiv (b.a. – today Botev Plovdiv) has 31 hits.

German football's dominance was completed with a second consecutive Ballon d'Or for Karl-Heitz Rummenigge, who equaled Franz Beckenbauer's feat but became the first West German to win the award in two consecutive years. The goals he scored helped Bayern Munich dominate the domestic stage and return to European competition with two semi-finals, albeit the first in the UEFA Cup tournament.

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