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Thursday brought a hotly anticipated milestone in the football calendar, as four Liverpool players earned nominations for the Ballon d’Or.

Although some see the individual award as nothing but a glorified popularity contest in a team sport, players themselves place great value on the gong.

Awarded in one form or another since 1956, the Ballon d’Or is football’s most prestigious individual prize, one which 33 Liverpool players have now been nominated to win.

As Alexis Mac Allister and Florian Wirtz take their place as the latest to be given a nod while employed by the Reds, Rousing The Kop take a look back at the previous 31.

Photo by Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

While the first Ballon d’Or was awarded, amazingly, to 41-year-old Stanley Matthews of Blackpool in 1956, it took until 1976 for the first Liverpool player to appear amongst the nominees.

That man was Kevin Keegan, who would ultimately go on to win back-to-back Ballon d’Ors in 1978 and 1979.

Dalglish picked up a second nomination in as many years to finish 11th in 1979.

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After a rather lean first 25 years of the Ballon d’Or from a Liverpool point of view, things ramped up during the 1980s.

The decade is often seen as a golden one in Liverpool history, and that was reflected in the amount of nominations to be the world’s greatest player.

Two players, Dalglish and Ian Rush, were the main beneficiaries, earning four nominations apiece.

The closest either came to winning was in 1983, when King Kenny finished runner-up to Michel Platini.

Rush’s best finish arrived in 1984, when the Welshman finished an impressive fourth place.

Other nominees were Terry McDermott, who came 16th in 1980, John Barnes who was sixth and 17th in 1987 and 89 respectively, and Peter Beardsley who was 21st in 1987.

If the 1980s were amazing for Liverpool, then the 1990s certainly were not.

With the team mired in mid-table mediocrity, only four players were put up for the Ballon d’Or in the whole decade, including Barnes in 1990.

Another of them, Patrik Berger, was not even a Liverpool player for the feats he was nominated for in 1996, although was with the Reds at the time the awards came around.

Mane was fourth, Salah fifth, Alisson Becker seventh, Trent Alexander-Arnold 19th and Gini Wijnaldum 26th.

With Liverpool once again the kings of England in the 2020s, Reds players have enjoyed success in the Ballon d’Or in recent seasons.

The Egyptian now has six nominations as a Liverpool player, with fifth-placed finishes his highest, coming in 2019 and 2022.

Mane also deserves a huge mention, managing to come second in 2022 just after his transfer to Bayern Munich.

After the Reds were beaten in the Champions League final, Van Dijk also got another nomination, finishing 16th, while Alexander-Arnold ended up 22nd.

There were two new nominees as well, with Fabinho (14th) and Luis Diaz (17th) adding their names to this exclusive list.

Which brings us right up to the present day, with Mac Allister, Wirtz, Van Dijk and Salah once again hoping to write themselves into history.