{"id":484585,"date":"2026-02-22T22:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/484585\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T22:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:40:14","slug":"michael-carrick-was-convinced-man-utd-flop-would-win-ballon-dor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/484585\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Carrick was ‘convinced’ Man Utd flop would win Ballon d’Or"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Carrick believed a former Manchester United teammate was a potential Ballon d’Or winner, according to Rio Ferdinand.<\/p>\n

Carrick <\/a>played alongside and then managed Cristiano Ronaldo,<\/a> a five-time Ballon d’Or winner who first win the prize at United <\/a>back in 2008.<\/p>\n

But he felt as though another had the capacity to follow in Ronaldo’s footsteps and be crowned the best player in the world. The revelation was revealed by former long-time colleague Ferdinand, who recently interviewed Diogo Dalot – a key member of United’s backline under Carrick – for his Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Portugal international was asked to name his ultimate five-a-side team from players he has played with. Dalot surprised Ferdinand by including Anthony Martial<\/a>, who scored 90 goals in 317 goals for United.<\/p>\n

Dalot explained that while he ultimately struggled for consistency, he claimed Martial could have “easily” been the best player in the world if he applied himself.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m going to say it because I\u2019m going to combine what, obviously, he could do in games, but in training,” Dalot said.<\/p>\n

“And I played a lot against him, so it was really, really tough to play. And he was one of those that, if he had obviously a bit more consistency, sometimes he would disconnect a little bit from everything. But if he wanted, he could be the best player in the world. Easily.”<\/p>\n

\"MartialMartial scored 90 goals for United. Image: Getty<\/p>\n

That prompted Ferdinand to reply, “You know, Carrick said to me when he first signed that Martial could win the Ballon d\u2019Or”.<\/p>\n

Dalot said he “would believe that” as Martial could come up with moments in training that “you\u2019d say you had to stop training” and “go inside”.<\/p>\n

Martial joined United from Monaco as a teenager for an initial \u00a336 million in 2015, scoring on his debut against Liverpool.<\/p>\n

He was a teammate of Carrick’s for a period until the former England midfielder hung up his boots and joined Jose Mourinho’s coaching staff in 2018.<\/p>\n

Martial had Ballon d’Or clause which wasn’t activated<\/p>\n

Martial had his best ever season in the 2019\/20 campaign where he bagged 23 goals in 48 appearances and the former Sevilla loanee later struggled with fitness and form – ultimately leaving on a free transfer in 2024 when many thought he should have left much earlier.<\/p>\n

The Frenchman’s move to United included a number of potential add-ons which totalled \u00a321.6 million, with one bonus payment in particular hitting headlines.<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Martial is currently playing in Mexico with Monterrey. Image: Getty<\/p>\n

It was widely reported that Martial’s contract included a Ballon d’Or clause, meaning United had to pay Monaco around \u00a38-10 million if he did live up to expectations.<\/p>\n

But while he won the Golden Boy award, Martial never even made the Ballon d’Or shortlist at any point and so United avoided the payment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Martial moved to AEK Athens in Greece after United and then signed for Mexican side Monterrey CF, where he has scored just one goal in 19 appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Carrick believed a former Manchester United teammate was a potential Ballon d’Or winner, according to Rio Ferdinand.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[3788,108738,1084,21907,403,99],"class_list":["post-484585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-manchester-united","tag-michael-carrick","tag-premier-league","tag-rio-ferdinand","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}