by rick olivares
Cristiano Ronaldo has been named winner of the 2013
Ballon d’Or award. It is the second time in his career that the Portuguese
winger has won the coveted award. The first was in 2008 when he was still
playing for Manchester United. The 2013 award is his first with Real Madrid.
There are some who feel that Lionel Messi should have
won it for a fourth consecutive time given his exploits and Barcelona winning
another La Liga title (one that Real Madrid was unable to defend). There are
others who feel that Franck Ribery, that talented Frenchman playing for Bayern
Munich, should have been given the nod since the German powerhouse team pretty
much won everything.
The Ballon d’Or is simply for the best footballer in
the world. While football is a team sport and any success will rely with the
other 10 teammates on the field, the coach as well as the reserves.
There is the World Club Championship, the Euros and
such and of course, the World Cup to determine the best teams. The Ballon d’Or
is for the best player. It is a democratic award given that players, coaches
and media have a say who brings home this prestigious award.
Nevertheless, my concern about this award is that it
is open to too much interpretation. The Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and
Bundesliga are shown pretty much everywhere. While they are arguably the best
leagues in the world with players from all over the world playing in them, are
the finalists truly representative of the best?
Maybe to make it truly the best player in the world
the football federations from the five different continents nominate a couple
of players representative from their region. Maybe it’s time to take into
account more stats other than goals scored or saves. Completed passes, tackles,
or even defensive stops should also be officially taken as stats. How was Fabio
Cannavaro voted as winner in 2006? Because of one World Cup?
Is the voting body truly representative from the
world? The voters should be duly accredited media persons and not just anyone. They
simply cannot cast anonymous votes in order to determine if the system is
flawed (for example will the Asian football writers vote for Asians only or be
open minded).
While goal scoring is always more important or even
sexier than a tackle how about the guy who keeps feeding you the ball? While
everyone is aware of what Xavi or Iniesta can do because of Messi’s brilliance,
they are – can you believe this – bypassed? How many of those goals scored by
CR7 and Messi were solo sorties? How may came off passes by their midfielders?
This isn’t to denigrate the accomplishments of
Ronaldo or Messi. I remain fans of both. Expanding the statistics would make
the voting more sensible. And the Ballon d’Or winner more deserving.
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