The ninety six journalists who vote in France Football Magazine for the European Footballer of the Year have a great deal of power in their hands. The trophy, the Ballon d’Or is one of the most prestigious and highly sought after.
Prestigious
To know just how prestigious the award is you just have to look back at some of the previous winners. Going back to the likes of Stanley Matthews and Alfredo Di Stefano, through to Eusebio, Bobby Charlton, and George Best, onto Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbaur and Michel Platini, Marco Van Basten and George Weak and more recently, Zidane, Figo, Ronaldinho and Kaka. It is a who’s who of European greatness.
Now to that list we can add the name of Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo after he was awarded the title yesterday.
Worthy winner?
Many people have argued about whether the twenty-three year old Portuguese wide man deserves the award or not, putting forward the names of Kaka, Messi, Torres and others as more worthy winners. A look at the season of Cristiano Ronaldo will show that those arguments were rightly discounted by a majority of the judges.
Ronaldo scored a remarkable forty-two goals for his club Manchester United as they won the Champions League and Premier League last season. He became only the fifth player to score more than thirty Premier League goals in a season. His goal tally won him the award as Europe’s top scorer and all this was done spending most of the season playing basically as a wide man.
Important games
For those who say that Ronaldo can only produce the goods in the less important games, let’s not forget that his final goal of the season came in the Champions League final.
Since the end of last season the memories of just how good the Portuguese superstar was have been slightly tarnished by events mainly off the field. The on-off move to Real Madrid in the Summer, with Ronaldo making it clear he wanted to go, became a slightly unpleasant affair. Also, with Ronaldo picking up an injury at Euro 2008 he missed the first few weeks of this season.
Nine times
As I said yesterday, I believe that he is not looking anything like the player he was last season at the moment and has the air of someone who doesn’t want to be where he is. That should all be put to one side so that the memory of his brilliance last season can be fully appreciated. Having said that of course, he has found the net nine times since September, so he isn’t doing that bad this season either!
Ronaldo was runner up in this award last year, behind Kaka, and he is already FIFPro World Player of the Year and also took the player of the year awards from the Professional Footballers’ Association and the Football Writers for his achievements.
Eusebio
Despite the incredible success Manchester United have had under Sir Alex Ferguson, he becomes the first United player to win the Ballon d’Or since George Best in 1968. He is the first Portuguese player to win the award since Luis Figo in 2000 and they join the great Eusebio to make up an impressive trio.
There are many facets that go to make up the phenomenon that is Cristiano Ronaldo. Many people can’t stand him. His temperament, his theatrical reaction to minor fouls and his general arrogance are all aspects of him that people cannot abide. What those type of things shouldn’t be allowed to disguise is the fact that he is a quite wonderful footballer who provides fantastic entertainment. That is what we all want from our football isn’t it?
Like him or loathe him
The season he produced last time out was one of the great individual performances in the history of the game. Like him or loathe him, you will find it hard to argue with that statement.
He is a worthy winner of the award and although the other players involved are all great in their own way, over the past year they haven’t come close to Cristiano Ronaldo.
The top ten are listed below. It’s not a bad list of players is it?
Final positions
1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Manchester United),
2. Lionel Messi (Argentina, Barcelona),
3. Fernando Torres (Spain, Liverpool),
4. Iker Casillas (Spain, Real Madrid),
5. Xavi (Spain, Barcelona),
6. Andrei Arshavin (Russia, Zenit St Petersburg),
7. David Villa (Spain, Valencia),
8. Kaka (Brazil, AC Milan),
9. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden, Inter Milan),
10 Steven Gerrard (England, Liverpool),
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