AC Milan's Kaka won the 2007 Golde Ball award. (Getty Images)AC Milan star Kaka said Tuesday he believes Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo will win this year's Ballon d'Or (Golden Ball) award handed out by France Football magazine.
"My favourite is Cristiano Ronaldo," said Kaka, who won the honour as the world player of the year in 2007. "He won two major titles with Manchester, and he scored a lot of goals."
Ronaldo, 23, scored 42 goals in all competitions last season to help United win the Premier League title and the Champions League.
The Portuguese star is considered one of the favourites to win the award. The other is Lionel Messi, FC Barcelona's Argentine star.
Messi, 21, had a solid season with the Catalan club last season and helped Argentina win the gold medal at the Olympic soccer tournament during the Beijing Games.
"He is the kind of player I really like," Kaka said. "Like Cristiano Ronaldo, he dribbles, he scores. Messi often does it all on his own."
Ronaldo finished runner-up in voting for the Ballon d'Or to Kaka last year, while Messi was third.
This year's award will be handed out Dec. 2 after 96 journalists from all over the world vote in a poll organized by France Football.
After more than half a century, the Ballon d'Or went through a major change last year.
In 1956, France Football came up with the idea of honouring Europe's player of the year by polling the top soccer journalists across the continent annually and awarding the Ballon d'Or.
In 2007, the magazine changed the qualifications, opening the award up to players from the rest of the world, regardless of nationality. This marked a new era in the history of the Ballon d'Or, as it effectively became the award to the world's player of the year.
