Antoine Griezmann’s camp still hopeful of Ballon d’Or win over Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi

Antoine Griezmann and his camp remain bashful and hopeful, in equal measure, when comparing their star man to the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

While the 25-year-old admits he would, one day, like to dine at the same table as the best footballers in the world in recent and past memory, both he and his representatives remain respectful of the duo’s achievements in world football.

This could be the year, however, that Griezmann starts to nudge himself further into the conversation and his agent Eric Olhats was speaking about his clients chances of claiming the Ballon d’Or this year, according to ESPN.

"I said on RMC, 'We will not have it, it will not be for us this year. It will be Ronaldo,'" Olhats said. "But this phrase was taken out of context.”

"I said that while explaining that Ronaldo would have if it was essentially based on the best of the year.”

"Antoine would hope that European journalists vote with a reasoning that goes beyond that establishing a ranking of players on the mere basis of their annual list.

"Fortunately, there are other criteria that come into play, such as individual performance.

"From there, we think he obviously has a chance. The Griezmann clan has certainly not given up."

With a victory in the Euro 2016 final over Griezmann’s France team along with a second Champions League victory in which he scored the winning penalty, Ronaldo has overtaken Messi with the bookmakers. Griezmann does remain an outside bet, however, given his scoring prowess at Euro along with his consistency and excellence for Atletico last season.