In 1957, Alfredo Di Stéfano was awarded the Ballon d’Or for the first time in only the competition’s second edition.
The former Argentinian and adopted Spanish international striker joined Real Madrid from River Plate in 1953 for a fee of around £20,000.
Di Stefano was quickly becoming an established superstar within the European game, having brought initial success to Madrid, both domestically and on the continental stage.
Alfredo Di Stefano was a European Class Act.
A Spanish Superstar
Even before this epic Ballon d’Or winning year, Di Stefano had already crafted a remarkable reputation over his four years at the Bernabeu up to that point.
The forward helped Real scoop two La Liga titles and the first ever European Cup. 1956/57 was debatably Di Stefano’s greatest ever season.
He scored an incredible 43 goals in 43 matches across all competitions. In La Liga, he netted 31 times in 30 games, becoming the league’s top scorer by some distance with Valladolid’s Joaquín Murillo in second place on just 18 goals.
Real Madrid lifted the La Liga title, their fifth in the club’s history, finishing four points ahead of runners-up Sevilla.
Los Blancos also claimed the Latin Cup, a knockout tournament that began in 1949 and contested by a select group of Southwestern European teams from the likes of Portugal or Spain.
Yet Di Stefano would leave some of his finest work for elite European competition.
Two Time European Champion
Real Madrid competed in only the second European Cup and retained the 1957 title having won it the previous season.
Di Stefano scored seven goals whilst playing on the continent. He found the net three times in the first round vs Austria’s Rapid Wein and twice more during the quarter finals against French side Nice.
As the competition progressed, the forward began to perform in big moments, scoring in the semi-final home tie defeat of Manchester United’s Busby Babes. Di Stefano even struck the opening goal in the final against Fiorentina with Real winning 2-0 and securing the European Cup once more.
He also scored seven times in seven caps for the Spanish national side during 1957.
Di Stefano featured on the Ballon d’Or ‘podium’ three times in total, as a runner-up in 1956, then twice more as a winner in 1957 and 1959.
He formed part of the ‘World Team of the 20th Century’ that was named in 1998 alongside a place in FIFA’s 100 of 2004 before making the ‘World Soccer Greatest XI of all time’ in 2013.
Arguably amongst Di Stefano’s greatest honours was the ‘Super Ballon d’Or’ he won back in 1989.
Created by French magazine France Football, the award marked the publication’s choice for ‘best football player of the previous three decades.’
1957 would be remembered as the year in which a rising world star spectacularly established himself amongst Europe’s greatest.
1957 Ballon d’Or Top 20
| Rank | Name | Club(s) | Nationality | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alfredo Di Stéfano | Spain Real Madrid | Spain [a] | 72 |
| 2 | Billy Wright | England Wolverhampton Wanderers | England | 19 |
| 3 | Duncan Edwards | England Manchester United | England | 16 |
| Raymond Kopa | Spain Real Madrid | France | ||
| 5 | László Kubala | Spain Barcelona | Hungary | 15 |
| 6 | John Charles | England Leeds United | Wales | 14 |
| Italy Juventus | ||||
| 7 | Eduard Streltsov | Soviet Union Torpedo Moscow | Soviet Union | 12 |
| 8 | Tommy Taylor | England Manchester United | England | 10 |
| 9 | József Bozsik | Hungary Budapest Honvéd | Hungary | 9 |
| Igor Netto | Soviet Union Spartak Moscow | Soviet Union | ||
| 11 | Lev Yashin | Soviet Union Dynamo Moscow | Soviet Union | 8 |
| 12 | Francisco Gento | Spain Real Madrid | Spain | 7 |
| Gyula Grosics | Hungary Budapest Honvéd | Hungary | ||
| Hungary Tatabánya | ||||
| 14 | Danny Blanchflower | England Tottenham Hotspur | Northern Ireland | 4 |
| Miloš Milutinović | Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Partizan | Yugoslavia | ||
| Juan Alberto Schiaffino | Italy Milan | Italy | ||
| 17 | Gerhard Hanappi | Austria Rapid Wien | Austria | 3 |
| Johnny Haynes | England Fulham | England | ||
| Stanley Matthews | England Blackpool | England |
Trivia
Alfredo Di Stéfano was named La Liga’s top scorer a total of five times whilst at Real Madrid – missing out on the accolade just once at the end of the 1954/55 campaign.
Billy Wright made 70 consecutive full international appearances and won 105 caps in total – sitting ninth on a list of England’s all-time appearance makers. He was also the first player in world football to earn one hundred caps for his country.
Even after his death, Duncan Edwards continued to receive a selection of posthumous awards including induction into the ‘Football League 100 Legends’, the ‘English Football Hall of Fame’ and ‘PFA Team of the Century.’
