Sunday, December 22, 2024

Most of us agree on Messi, but are the others in the top ten right?

Graham Fisher in Editorial, General Soccer News 2 Dec 2009

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Worthy winner

Worthy winner

Twenty-two year old football genius Lionel Messi has rightly won the Ballon d’Or award after being named European Footballer of the Year. There are ninety-six jurors and Messi was just seven points away from getting the maximum possible score, making him probably the most clear winner in the history of the award.

Debut

Messi has had a fabulous career and is still so young. He was born in Rosario Santa Fe in 1987 and joined Barcelona as a thirteen year old in 2000. At the age of sixteen, in 2003, he made his senior debut for the club in a friendly against Porto.

Two years later he led Argentina to the World Youth Championship and collected the top scorer and best player awards at the tournament. In that same year he made his debut for the senior Argentina side and also made his competitive debut for Barcelona.

Gold

In 2008 he won the Olympic Gold Medal with Argentina and finished second in the World Player of the Year award. In 2009 he scored one of the goals as Barcelona won the Champions League and helped Argentina to qualify for next summer’s World Cup.

Messi has played forty-one times for Argentina scoring thirteen goals. For Barcelona he has found the net ninety-one times in one hundred and seventy-nine games.

Treble

Last season he was instrumental in helping his club side to a treble of Champions League, the Spanish championship and Spanish cup.

It is fair to say that for a twenty-two year old, Messi has packed quite a lot into his career already!

There would not be too many people who would disagree with the decision to make Messi Europe’s best player but the rest of the top ten may well cause some debate.

Heights

In second place was Cristiano Ronaldo who helped Manchester United to the Premier League title and the final of the Champions League without ever really hitting the heights of the previous season.

Third was Barcelona and Spain’s Xavi with his club and international team-mate Iniesta in fourth.

Fifth

Sammy Eto’o, now with Inter, was voted in fifth place. Kaka, now at Real Madrid, was sixth and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, now at Barcelona, was seventh.

Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney was eighth, Chelsea’s Didier Drogba ninth and Liverpool’s Steve Gerrard tenth.

Difficult

In my opinion it is difficult to see why Cristiano Ronaldo would finish ahead of Xavi, Iniesta and Eto’o who all had fabulous seasons and won three trophies. What did Kaka help Milan to achieve over the past twelve months? Has he really been the sixth best player in Europe? The same could be said for Ibrahimovic who is clearly a fine player but didn’t manage to help Inter to push on to the next level. Wayne Rooney has played well recently but it is surely difficult to justify a place in Europe’s top ten for the Manchester United man.

If we can pretty much agree on Messi deserving the award, who do you think should have made the other places in the top ten. Do you agree with the jurors or have they got it wrong?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Graham Fisher


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  • Jason

    0 0

    random order for coming year. messi, kaka, cristiano R., Cese fabregas, ryan giggs, Xavi, puyol, casillas, petr cech, fernando torres.

    messi- is the maradona of this football era

    kaka- The remaining greatness of the golden brasil age

    Cristiano- most gifted player in recent years, but lack of sportsmanship.

    Cese fabregas- so young, yet he can control the midfield better than anyone else in the game

    ryan giggs- you can say that he might not be the fastest or strongest, but at this age he is still the heart of Man utd. he is probably the most importnt man in utd atm , ofc except for sir fergie

    Xavi- the most important man in the spainish national team, heis at the top of his game, his strengh, his skills, his expriences, add all that up you get a great player

    Puyol- watching EPL football, you would only imagine all the center backs are tall and bulky like john terry, or Rio F. but this barce captain not only he can stop strikers, he can control the game in attack and defence, with his smaller body size, he can steal the ball for the fastest orthe strongest strikers there are. best defender in recent years!

    have to be fair, to the defenders, and goal keepers too. attacking is only half part of this beautiful game. i say a good keeper is the most vital part of a football match.

    casillas- Fine keeper, can save shots as hard and fast as they come.always calm, good positioning, and amazing reflexes.

    petr cech- as tough as chelsea defence look, he is the main recent for that. He is ready every single game, never been caught off guard. just looke at how many goals were scored against chelsea in recent years, you would see that petr cech is really a brick wall in front of the chelsea’s net

    fernando torres- he is still at a young age,yet he is the full definition of a good striker, as T henry, Brazilian ronaldo was. this player is quick, he can score from possibly any angle you cna imagine, left or right foot. but from time to time he does dissapear inside a match. he needs to be more active, and show the world he is just as good as the bests in this beautiful game of football

  • Jason

    0 0

    random order for coming year. messi, kaka, cristiano R., Cese fabregas, ryan giggs, Xavi, puyol, casillas, petr cech, fernando torres.

    messi- is the maradona of this football era

    kaka- The remaining greatness of the golden brasil age

    Cristiano- most gifted player in recent years, but lack of sportsmanship.

    Cese fabregas- so young, yet he can control the midfield better than anyone else in the game

    ryan giggs- you can say that he might not be the fastest or strongest, but at this age he is still the heart of Man utd. he is probably the most importnt man in utd atm , ofc except for sir fergie

    Xavi- the most important man in the spainish national team, heis at the top of his game, his strengh, his skills, his expriences, add all that up you get a great player

    Puyol- watching EPL football, you would only imagine all the center backs are tall and bulky like john terry, or Rio F. but this barce captain not only he can stop strikers, he can control the game in attack and defence, with his smaller body size, he can steal the ball for the fastest orthe strongest strikers there are. best defender in recent years!

    have to be fair, to the defenders, and goal keepers too. attacking is only half part of this beautiful game. i say a good keeper is the most vital part of a football match.

    casillas- Fine keeper, can save shots as hard and fast as they come.always calm, good positioning, and amazing reflexes.

    petr cech- as tough as chelsea defence look, he is the main recent for that. He is ready every single game, never been caught off guard. just looke at how many goals were scored against chelsea in recent years, you would see that petr cech is really a brick wall in front of the chelsea’s net

    fernando torres- he is still at a young age,yet he is the full definition of a good striker, as T henry, Brazilian ronaldo was. this player is quick, he can score from possibly any angle you cna imagine, left or right foot. but from time to time he does dissapear inside a match. he needs to be more active, and show the world he is just as good as the bests in this beautiful game of football

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