On December 04 2013 03:10 Twisted wrote: It seems like every day a kid gets branded 'the new Messi'.
There's a lot more to becoming successful than just having pure skill. You need a lot of determination and mental strength to reach a respected first team from being 14 years old.
Same thing was before Messi was the world's best. Everyone was the "next Zidane" lol.
The following 23 men (in alphabetical order) are in contention for the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2013:
Gareth Bale (Wales), Edinson Cavani (Uruguay), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Radamel Falcao (Colombia), Eden Hazard (Belgium), Zlatan Ibrahimović (Sweden), Andrés Iniesta (Spain), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Robert Lewandowski (Poland), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Thomas Müller (Germany), Manuel Neuer (Germany), Neymar (Brazil), Mesut Özil (Germany), Andrea Pirlo (Italy), Franck Ribéry (France), Arjen Robben (Netherlands), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Luis Suárez (Uruguay), Thiago Silva (Brazil), Yaya Touré (Côte d’Ivoire), Robin Van Persie (Netherlands), Xavi (Spain)
As some of you might have noticed, I am a huge supporter of Lahm and I think he has deserved it. His play is near perfection and he has displayed that constantly from January 1st on. But sadly, he won't have a shot since he is a defensive player.
Jupp Heynckes as coach of the year should be a no-brainer
I think the ballon is a done deal. I read somewhere an approximation by someone who hunted down every national team leader's ballon vote that was published and it was cristiano first, messi second, ribery third.
I agree as well, with messi being injured and cristiano stepping it up for portugal, also ribery is no where near close these two in terms of ability.
On December 04 2013 07:23 Steveling wrote: I think the ballon is a done deal. I read somewhere an approximation by someone who hunted down every national team leader's ballon vote that was published and it was cristiano first, messi second, ribery third.
I agree as well, with messi being injured and cristiano stepping it up for portugal, also ribery is no where near close these two in terms of ability.
I heard a similar thing. That the guys who predicted last year's ballon (who got the top 5 100% correct) did it again and they said Messi first, Cristiano second, Ribery third.
On December 04 2013 07:42 Ethelis wrote: The ones who predicted last season correctly, predicted Messi > CR7 > Ribery this season.
That would be awesome :D I just hope that Cristiano doesn't win. Not because he doesn't deserve it (my opinion is that he probably deserves it, but winning title should be more important for this award), but because of the freaking ridiculous campaign Real Madrid and pro-Madrid medias have been doing for almost 1 month now.
Two good examples, Sunday, Ronaldo received the "Di Stefano" Award of Best La Liga 2012-13 player, which is a Marca Award. Let me just remind that Messi finished first in the goal scoring count and actually won La Liga. For this award, that is NOT an official award, Marca created a big news on their website "Ronaldo wins it again!" (he won it the previous season). Not even a mention of Messi receiving the Pichichi award (best goal scorer).
And Monday was the funniest propaganda bullshit they've done recently. Monday night, there was the LFP (Liga de Futbol Profesional) Awards ceremony in which Messi won the Best Player of the Season Award and the Best Attacking Player Award. Ronaldo won the Bravest Player Award which was created this year and wasn't even presented two weeks ago when they talked about the nominees for every award (something fishy, you say?). Ok let's say this award is not a bullshit award created to make Florentino happy and keep CR7 propaganda alive. AS and MARCA, the 2 most read newspapers (and pro-Madrid of course) put on their webpage (and on Tuesday's newspaper frontpage for AS): "Cristiano Ronaldo, MVP of La Liga 2012-13". As far as I know, MVP means Most VALUABLE Player, not Most Vaillant Player... Not only that but Marca published the full list of the prizewinning players for each categories in which they "forgot" to put the "Best player of La Liga" category (which Messi won). Even funnier, AS wrote in small characters (just under the big ass Cristiano MVP title) "Messi console himself by getting the Best Player Award and the Best Attacking Player award". Console himself???
It's nothing new of course, they said that Morata (or Jese, can't remember) was the MVP for the last trophy won by the Spanish youngster team when it was actually Deulofeu (by the way, Monday they also forgot to mention that Deulofeu was voted Best La Liga Adelante Player 2012-13), and the same for another trophy where they declared that the MVP was Jese (or Morata, can't remember!!!) when it was actually Thiago Alcantara.
I pass on Ancelotti saying "when you have Cristiano Ronaldo in your team, why would you want to also have Messi in it?" and this kind of commentaries that have been legion this last month... If CR doesn't win the Ballon d'Or it will be magnificent. Tears, everywhere.
EPT
