Welcome to the "Frog," my little piece of cyberspace to talk about my passion - le foot (or soccer for my North American friends) especially anything around French football. Of course I will have some guest contributors that might want to discuss other aspects of footy!
I support Les Bleus, Arsenal and PSG but really just love watching, analyzing and following the beautiful game.
"You have to trust your teammates, always. If not we are lost."
No surprise that Argentine and Barcelona star Messi won the Ballon D'Or, his third such honor. At the tender age of 24 will anyone be surprised if he ended up doubling his tally? He joins the only other three time winners - Zidane and Ronaldo (the Brazilian) - of the FIFA player of the year. Don't forget that the Ballon D'Or and FIFA player of the year award merged, in terms of Ballon D'Or, Messi joins the likes of Platini, Cruyff and Van Basten as three time winners.
As long as he has these two, more awards in Messi's future
What I find interesting of all these winners is their success for both club and country...except for Messi. All of these players won titles and were major contributors for their nation teams, their impact at the club level are all on the same level. Messi's success is disproportionately weighed to his run of form with Barcelona. There have been many discussions, articles, debates and opinions about why this is...there is no doubt that Barcelona, as it is currently constituted, is one of the best teams ever seen. However that is not unique to Messi, all the other winners above played on clubs that were also loaded: Zizou and Ronaldo did play for the Galacticos! The Milan teams of Van Basten were some of the best club teams ever seen. Cruyff's Ajax sides revolutionized total football. Platini's Juventus were one of Europe's best with the likes of Boniek, Rossi and Tardelli. All these winners also won on the international level.
Messi continues to struggle with Argentina. Maybe Argentina needs to stop trying to be Barcelona and figure out what is the best way to leverage the world's best player with the other pieces they have. It is not as if Argentina is full of chumps either - Tevez, Higuain, Pastore, Aguero, Mascherano and Di Maria to name a few. What is holding back Argentina is this attempt to build a Barcelona type system, rather than build a team and figure out where Messi would slot into the side. Until Argentina get a manager who is there for a longer time frame than a year or two, who devises a system and sticks with it, I fear that Messi might always be pushing when he puts on the light blue strip of Argentina. But for now he can thank Barcelona for allowing him to show the world what a wonderful talent he is.
We all knew it would be someone from Barcelona...Messi, Iniesta and Xavi were all the finalists, but I thought a World Cup winner would take the Ballon D'Or. After the run Spain has been on the past few years I was certain that the award would go to either Iniesta or Xavi, but maybe because they are so closely associated for both club and country it is hard to give the award to one of the Spanish midfielders. The final vote seems to indicate this, with Messi getting just over 22% of the vote with Iniesta coming in at 17% and Xavi at 16% - remove one of the Spaniards from the final round and maybe the one remaining gets enough to surpass Messi's 22%.
So was the award undeserved by the Argentine? Absolutely not. Messi remains on top of his game for Barcelona. He is one of the most creative and dangerous attacking players the game has seen in a very long time. On pure current form and talent, it is hard to argue against Messi. The one negative for me was his performance at the World Cup. He did not score a goal. Yes he was vital for Argentina's early success playing the role of a traditional #10, distributing and pacing the game for Argentina. The only problem was the last image we saw of Messi and Argentina - being thoroughly dismantled by Germany. Le Balllon d'Or, during a world cup year, seems reserved for the player that carried his nation to a world title...even more so when that team won the European title 2 years prior and has been on an amazing international run.
On pure talent alone, Messi is deserving, but on results and talent Iniesta should have won the award.
The list for the Ballon D'Or award, award to the best European footballer, meaning the player who plays in Europe....main reason why Donovan has not won three or four of these awards....has been announced. The list:
Xabi Alonso
(Spain)
Dani Alves
(Brazil)
Iker Casillas
(Spain)
Cristiano Ronaldo
(Portugal)
Didier Drogba
(Ivory Coast)
Samuel Eto'o
(Cameroon)
Cesc Fabregas
(Spain)
Asamoah Gyan
(Ghana)
Julio Cesar
(Brazil)
Miroslav Klose
(Germany)
Philipp Lahm
(Germany)
Maicon
(Brazil)
Thomas Mueller
(Germany)
Arjen Robben
(Netherlands)
Bastian Schweinsteiger
(Germany)
David Villa
(Spain)
Xavi
(Spain)
Carles Puyol
(Spain)
Andres Iniesta
(Spain)
Diego Forlan
(Uruguay)
Lionel Messi
(Argentina)
Mesut Oezil
(Germany)
Wesley Sneijder
(Netherlands)
Clubs represented: Chelsea, Arsenal, Sunderland, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich (funny seeing Sunderland in this company!)
Not entirely surprising that Spain dominates the list with 7 players after winning the World Cup. Germany's surprise run boosted some of their players while runner up Holland only have 2 nominees, but then again those are the only 2 that did not try to hack their way to a title! What is striking is the traditional soccer nations - England, Italy and France have no representation! Then again when you start looking at who could have been on the list it is difficult to find a player worthy of a nomination:
England - Rooney? did not do anything at the World Cup and his start of the EPL season casts a dark shadow over last season's personal success in the EPL. Gerrard and Lampard? Again did not distinguish themselves at the World Cup. Who else? Cannot think of anyone that is even in the conversation....maybe Ashley Cole? Interesting reflection on English footballers and the EPL.
Italy and France - their players both suffer from horrendous performances at the World Cup. The only player that might have had a chance to at least make the list was Malouda, based on how he has played with Chelsea could have warranted inclusion, but he would be the 23rd best on the list...at best.
Also what is interesting is only 3 players are currently in the EPL - Drogba, Gyan and Cesc - a telling story for what is thought of as the best league in the world. The majority are in La Liga, but concentrated in 2 clubs - Barcelona and Real Madrid, only Forlan is not part of this mix playing at Atletico Madrid.
So who wins this award?
One goal = Ballon D'Or
Iniesta - Partial due success over the past few seasons with Barcelona and Spain. The fact he scored the winning goal for his country will account for a lot of the sentiment to have him win the award. Zizou won the award in 1998, in my opinion, purely based on his brace in the finals. It is hard to separate Iniesta from Xavi when it comes to their Barcelona success so that might take away some of the shine, but scoring the winning goal for a nation long associated with World Cup failure coupled with all the success at club level and you get the award.
Sneijder and Forlan - tie for second. Both will get a lot of votes for what they did in South Africa as well as for their clubs, both winning European club trophies. The Dutchman will get much deserved credit for carrying his national team to the World Cup finals, he really was the main creative catalyst for Oranje. Winning the treble with Inter Milan was no small feat. Had Holland won the World Cup he would have been the clear cut favorite for the Ballon D'Or. Forlan won the UEFA Cup (I am still going to call it that...) for Atletico Madrid, led Uruguay to a 4th place finish, netted 5 goals and picked up the Golden Ball award as best player at the World Cup. All which make him level with Sneijder in second place.
Gyan - third place for the Ghanaian. Were it not for a missed penalty kick, Gyan might be higher on this list. He almost single-handily carried his nation to a first ever World Cup semi final. For Rennes he was pivotal in allowing the club to find success in Ligue 1. To me it was his sheer will that carried Ghana over the summer and for that he should be rewarded.
Other players that could finish on the podium - Muller, Xavi and Villa.
See you on January 10th in Zurich to learn the name of the winners!
