Messi wins Ballon D'Or

[Graz]

Seems weird for a football forum to not mention this!

Messi wins a shock 4th Ballon D'Or after a year he just scored a couple of tap ins. Ronaldo 2nd, Iniesta 3rd.


The entire team of the year is made up of players from La Liga... 5 Real Madrid, 5 Barcelona, and Falcao.
Coach of the year was Del Bosque, ahead of Pep and Mourinho.

La Liga domination basically.


Other than the Puskas Goal of the Year award, which went to this:
[video=youtube_share;6HTQ-VdQoCM]http://youtu.be/6HTQ-VdQoCM[/video]

He's no Lilian Nalis.

 

[Matt_B]

Seems weird for a football forum to not mention this!

Messi wins a shock 4th Ballon D'Or after a year he just scored a couple of tap ins. Ronaldo 2nd, Iniesta 3rd.


The entire team of the year is made up of players from La Liga... 5 Real Madrid, 5 Barcelona, and Falcao.
Coach of the year was Del Bosque, ahead of Pep and Mourinho.

La Liga domination basically.


Other than the Puskas Goal of the Year award, which went to this:
[video=youtube_share;6HTQ-VdQoCM]http://youtu.be/6HTQ-VdQoCM[/video]

He's no Lilian Nalis.

Other than RvP, I can't think of any Premier League player who would come close.

 

[Matt_B]

Apparently RvP was the highest placed premier league player in 9th and Rooney the highest English player in 15th. Best league in the world.

 

[Han]

Apparently RvP was the highest placed premier league player in 9th and Rooney the highest English player in 15th. Best league in the world.

Does having two outstanding teams make la liga the best team in the world?

 

[pork pie fox]

Surely the "best league in the world" could be measured on a variety of criteria? Most entertaining? Best technically? Most competitive? Most successful in regards European competitions?

I think if you put up all of the Spanish league versus a comparable English club then the Spanish might win overall, but I'd still rather watch the premier league in general.

 

[Matt_B]

Does having two outstanding teams make la liga the best team in the world?

I assume you mean league But no it doesn't. But being able to attract the best players goes some way to judging. I think the Championship and League 1 are much more entertaining than the Premier League because they are more competitive.

 

[Blue Maniac]

Seems weird for a football forum to not mention this!

Football forum?

 

[Biffa Bacon]

Nothing that involves FIFA or UEFA directly has much interest for me, I really don't care who Sepp and Platini rate.

 

[Hazzman]

Nothing that involves FIFA or UEFA directly has much interest for me, I really don't care who Sepp and Platini rate.

It's voted for by all International managers and captains.

 

[Profondo Rosso]

Team of the year was a bit of a joke tbh, or at least the defence was. The midfield and attack makes sense, but Pique? Marcelo? And Dani ****ing Alves?! Give me a ****ing break! Bias aside, Hummels was widely considered the best centre back in Europe this year and just because he didn't play for a team where the defenders are barely needed didn't get in team of the year.

It's like putting Paul Konchesky and Zac Whitbread in the Championship team of the year because they play for the team who conceded the fewest goals.

Does having two outstanding teams make la liga the best team in the world?

Does having two less than outstanding teams make the premier league the best league in the world? Why people still go on about La Liga being a two horse race, as though the Premier League isn't just as much as one these days is a head scratcher.

P.S. This is also assuming for some bizarre reason Atletico Madrid aren't also considered one of the top 5 or so teams in Europe right now.

 

[Han]

Does having two less than outstanding teams make the premier league the best league in the world? Why people still go on about La Liga being a two horse race, as though the Premier League isn't just as much as one these days is a head scratcher.

P.S. This is also assuming for some bizarre reason Atletico Madrid aren't also considered one of the top 5 or so teams in Europe right now.

I wasn't arguing that the Premier League is any better.

 

[p.stromso]

Any football fan worth his soul will tell you La Liga is a much better league. In Barcelona you have arguably one of the finest club sides of the modern era and in Messi the world's greatest ever player. Playing when Spain have been the best international side for a long long time.

That's without mentioning the likes of Falcao and Isco floating around in the league.

 

[Hazzman]

Team of the year was a bit of a joke tbh, or at least the defence was. The midfield and attack makes sense, but Pique? Marcelo? And Dani ****ing Alves?! Give me a ****ing break! Bias aside, Hummels was widely considered the best centre back in Europe this year and just because he didn't play for a team where the defenders are barely needed didn't get in team of the year.

.

It's picked by the players. Thereby just like the PFA awards, it rewards popularity and media coverage.

 

[p.stromso]

If we're being picky Carvajal has probably been the best right back in Europe and he looks likely to leave Leverkusen and go straight back to Real Madrid as they have an option on him when they sold him to Bayer in the summer.

 

[bocadillo]

Any football fan worth his soul will tell you La Liga is a much better league.

That's the rest of us told then.

 

[FryattFox]

Any football fan worth his soul will tell you La Liga is a much better league.

Sexist.

Women are wrong too.

 

[David Gwilliam]

Any football fan worth his soul will tell you La Liga is a much better league. In Barcelona you have arguably one of the finest club sides of the modern era and in Messi the world's greatest ever player. Playing when Spain have been the best international side for a long long time.

That's without mentioning the likes of Falcao and Isco floating around in the league.

A wonderfully provocative post. I will rise to one of the baits by saying that while I think Messi is the best in the world this century I would rank Pele as the greatest ever.

The list of winners is quite fascinating.
The first winner was Stanley Matthews with Di Stefano coming second. This was understandably sentimental. Matthews was 42 years old and still brilliant but certainly past his best. No one could claim he was better in 1957 than second ranked Di Stefano who was at his peak
Ferencz Puskas never won. In 1958 and 1959 he was banned from football. What had he done to deserve such a harsh punishment. He had been out of Hungary when the Russians invaded with brutal force and had spoken out against it. FIFA ordered him to return to Hungary and he refused. FIFA banned him for two years. Nowadays FIFA have got a Puskas Cup for the best goal scored. He was incidentally perhaps the greatest player to ever play in Leicester.
In 1957 Duncan Edwards came third. He was 20 years old at the time. People who never saw him will find it difficult to realise the sheer talent he had - experienced judges such as Bobby Charlton, Tommy Docherty and Jimmy Murphy believed he would have been better than Pele.
Keven Keegan won the trophy twice. He was a very gifted footballer who made the best of his talents, He did not have the sheer genius of Bobby Charlton and George Best.
The list is distorted by being confined to European footballers until the 1990s. How many times would Pele or Maradonna have won it had they been eligible?