Cristiano Ronaldo has tarnished his legacy – he doesn’t belong on the list of the best five players to have won a Ballon d’Or this millennium.That is the explosive verdict of talkSPORT’s Max Scott, who admits recent events have seen him go off the five-time Golden Ball winner.talkSPORT’s Mount Rushmore looks at the most influential and iconic things in sport, with presenter Max Scott selecting five (four is just not enough) in each topicAlamyCR7’s international career with Portugal was thrust into doubt after he departed the Euro 2016 champions’ training camp in September.Portuguese journalist Pedro Sepulveda told talkSPORT that Ronaldo’s anger stemmed from a belief that he had been lied to about his game time by his new national team boss, Jorge Jesus.Jesus then doubled down on his stance regarding the Manchester United legend, who has even escalated events by having a personal dig at Simon Jordan.In the end Ronaldo, 41, was given a 30-day suspension and fined 255 euros (£215) by his country’s FA.With the 2026 edition upon us and Harry Kane, Rodri and Lamine Yamal in the running, Max has looked at the list of the best Ballon d’Or winners since the year 2000 in his weekly series, Mount Rushmore or less, to pick the best.Lionel Messi: Eight-time winnerAs talkSPORT’s Scott says: Let’s get the obvious one out of the way.Messi has won a record-breaking eight Ballon d’Ors, starting in 2009 and most recently after lifting the World Cup with Argentina in 2022.“The greatest of all time – He did what Ronaldo could never do and win the World Cup,” Scott told talkSPORT.com. “And he’s quite simply the greatest ever football player to grace a football pitch. Max Scott's Mount Rushmore or lessThe best Premier League striker in each decadeTop five greatest Premier League signings in historyThe most-heated rivalriesThe best football fansIconic things that should make a comeback in modern football“And that hurts me particularly after what happened in the World Cup between England and Argentina,” Scott continued on Messi.“I’ve still got a bee in my bonnet about the behaviour of those Argentinian players and Messi’s the captain, but you cannot deny that he is the best ever player.“I think that he’s the most complete footballer as well.“There’s something special about a player who seems to have been just born with it. “Whereas CR7 clearly grafted to become one of the greatest ever players in the gym, early mornings, routine. “I’m sure Lionel Messi worked incredibly hard, but there’s a magic about him that puts him, not just at the top of my Mount Rushmore or less, of Ballon d’Or winners, but as the greatest ever player to play the beautiful game.Messi is football’s Ballon d’Or king with eight wins in his career to cement his place as the greatest ever playerKaka: 2007 winnerOnce upon a time, he was the cream of the crop and the last winner before Messi and Ronaldo’s domination that lasted until 2018.“One of the most phenomenal attacking midfielders I think that we’ve ever seen,” Scott recalled. “And people often look at Kaká and look at the end of his career, or look at what happened at Real Madrid. “But prime AC Milan Kaká, who won the 06/07 Champions League and Ballon d’Or, by the way, beating Ronaldo and Messi, scored 20 goals, 14 assists in 51 games that season. He was unbelievable.“And he wasn’t just one of those sort of graceful Brazilian attacking midfielders that was in pockets. “He could pick up the ball at the edge of his own box, drive forward 30, 40 meters, and make something magic happen. “I just think he’s one of the most underrated greats of the game – the way he played football, it was similar to Patrick Vieira in the Premier League: just the power, the strength, the skill, the technique, and the goals.”Kaka is one of six players to have won the Ballon d’Or at MilanAFPRonaldinho: 2005 winnerA man was so indestructible at his peak that even some of his former Barcelona teammates struggle to choose between him and Messi.Scott said: “Now his Brazilian counterpart, one of the greatest ever, Pele, he made famous the phrase, the beautiful game – And I feel like Ronaldinho picked up that baton and carried it on. “Not just his achievements on the pitch, as a Barcelona player, in El Clásico, he got a standing ovation from the Bernabeu for the two goals he scored in a 3-0 El Clásico win in 2007. “That alone tells you that he sits in a different stratosphere of football players, a different otherworldly realm of Ballon d’Or winners that you can, as a Barcelona player, get a standing ovation from Real Madrid fans.In his prime, Ronaldinho was one of the best players in world footballGetty“He was absolutely unbelievable, but it was not just what he achieved on the pitch, winning the World Cup, winning the Champions League.“It’s the fact that he transcended sport. I remember his Jogo bonito campaign with Nike with those beautiful Nike boots that he had, gold and white boots. “And I still refuse to believe that him repeatedly kicking the ball against the crossbar was CGI, because he was just that special. “His goals against Chelsea in the Champions League were unbelievable.“And for me, as somebody that played the game with such ease and with a smile on his face, he’s like a Last Bastion of a maverick, of a player that didn’t need systems and tactics and over-management.“He partied, he got the women, he gambled, but he’s still an absolute legend. Ronaldinho, hats off to you, sir.”In 2005 Frank Lampard finished as runner-up to Ronaldinho for both the Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awardsGettyLuis Figo: 2000 winner“From a man in Ronaldinho who was absolutely adored by Barcelona to a man who is despised by them for moving from them to Real Madrid Galacticos, it’s Luis Figo. “And he’s another guy who I think has almost lost a little bit in the history of European greats because he played before the Ronaldo-Messi era. Luis Figo is one of the greatest wingers we’ve ever seen.“Rapid, technical ability, shooting, finishing, dribbling, but he was also incredibly powerful. Moving to Real Madrid, he won it all. “Absolutely class, still an incredibly important figure in world football. I just think, go and watch his highlights.“Go and look at his achievements. He’s won the Ballon d’Or and he won it for a reason. “A little bit underrated, but that era of La Liga, Revista de la Liga on Sky Sports, when we used to be able to watch it all the time, he was absolutely unbelievable.”Figo won the 2000 Ballon d’Or to just about to sneak into selection for this listAFPWhy Ronaldo Nazario not Cristiano?“I know Cristiano Ronaldo has won his fair share of Ballon d’Ors, but if I’m completely honest with you, I feel that the ways he’s conducted himself, whether it’s going to Saudi Arabia, whether it’s dragging out his Portugal career and becoming an even greater ego, I’ve just gone off him. “I’m not denying how great of a player he is, but I do think that he’s tarnished his legacy, whereas Ronaldo hasn’t. “I know that his career ended with injury issues and issues with his sort of, with his weight and his physicality, but in his prime in 2002, when he won the Ballon d’Or, he’d won the World Cup. He got the golden boot at the World Cup with eight goals.“He was the greatest, and still is, the greatest ever striker in modern times. “I’m talking greater than Erling Haaland, and this hurts to say, greater than Thierry Henry, who for me is the greatest player we’ve seen in the Premier League. Ronaldo is a World Cup legend with 15 goals in 19 games and two winner’s medalsGetty“We’re talking about a player who had absolutely everything: the perfect amalgamation of that Brazilian grace and skill and technique, and then the power and the pace and the finishing ability and the dribbling ability that made him one of the greatest in Europe. “He did it everywhere: Barcelona, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Wimbledon, World Cup, Champions League, La Liga, Serie A. Ronaldo Nazário, for me is an absolute icon of the game.“That dome haircut, his famous seizure that he had before a World Cup final, how he came back then afterwards to win it in 2002, the story’s absolutely amazing. “And where is he now? He’s back in Brazil, living the humble lifestyle, in complete contradiction to the crazy antics we see from Cristiano Ronaldo and how he seems to think he’s got complete control over the Portuguese FA. “I think the sooner that CR7 retires, the better it is for his legacy.“But Ronaldo Nazário is the greatest striker we’ve ever seen in modern times, and he has to be up there on the Mount Rushmore, or less, of Ballon d’Or winners.”What is Mount Rushmore? The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are carved into the stone in South Dakota, chosen for their representation of the most important events in the United States’ history.As a result, fans use the idea to create their own version to list the most influential or iconic games and people that define their selected categories.Here, though, talkSPORT argues five is not enough, so more or less this is Mount Rushmore.