Something really confuses me...

Three years ago Barca wins a historical trebel and Messi gets the Ballon d'Or despite not being the top scorer in Spain that year and a convincing enough reason was given Messi was the most important player in the treble winning team, the following season Inter Milan won the treble and we all thought Sniejder will win it but the rules apparently changed despite adding to his treble season a world cup final, then there was Xavi, Inesta, and Iker all with world cup medals and we thought at least a world cup winner will win the Ballon d'Or, but again the shock was when Messi was announced, why? hey the guy scored a load of goals and therefore he deserves it. OK no problem.

Last season CR7 scored the most goals and won the cup title but again Messi won it.

I am not saying Messi is not the best player currently and by a far distance, but I am trying to figure out what are the basis of Ballon d'Or, are there any at all?

Is it about the best player or the most influential in that year? If it is about the best player talent wise is there any need to have it yearly?

I mean if a player is the best and most talented this year can anyone take that from him unless a new player floats to the surface?

In other words if RM win all that is to be won and Benzema scores 50+ goals in all competitions should he win the Ballon d'Or will that automatically make him the best player?

Can you make the argument that Messi was not the best player in the world in any of those 3 years, though? That's all you really need to ask yourself. There is no criteria through which people vote for this.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Can you make the argument that Messi was not the best player in the world in any of those 3 years, though? That's all you really need to ask yourself. There is no criteria through which people vote for this.

NOT AT ALL, all are well deserved Ballon D'Ors if it was for the best player.

09-10 was not desserved


but then again fifa is all over messis dick

baresi wrote:

Last season CR7 scored the most goals and won the cup title but again Messi won it.
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you little messi hater...how he scored most goals? both scored 53 goals. messi was top scorer in CL and CR in la liga. messi had more assists. do you really try to compare their stats and titles?

about ballon dor its all about who do people consider the best. it comes with performances (captain and coaches votes) and titles (media votes)

billionmillion wrote:

baresi wrote:

Last season CR7 scored the most goals and won the cup title but again Messi won it.
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you little messi hater...how he scored most goals? both scored 53 goals. messi was top scorer in CL and CR in la liga. messi had more assists. do you really try to compare their stats and titles?

about ballon dor its all about who do people consider the best. it comes with performances (captain and coaches votes) and titles (media votes)

this might help push it through your thick skull.

baresi wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Can you make the argument that Messi was not the best player in the world in any of those 3 years, though? That's all you really need to ask yourself. There is no criteria through which people vote for this.

NOT AT ALL, all are well deserved Ballon D'Ors if it was for the best player.

RuthlesGangstaDef:villin wrote:

its of course for the best player what you think. you really dont know what you are talking about

billionmillion wrote:its of course for the best player what you think. you really dont know what you are talking about

Well Maradona has never won one, and he is one of the Greatest Of All Time.
So I guess you know exactly what you are talking about.

billionmillion wrote:its of course for the best player what you think. you really dont know what you are talking about

he didnt make a statement he asked a question and is confused as am I..

why all of the sudden when it's about messi do people get super mega defensive even when someone is being completely reasonable and not trolling?

Its not based about any criteria, not any more. They changed it so Messi could win in 2010. Now, its just a popularity contest.

in the end of the day messi was the best player in the world in 09-10 BUT since the balon dor is given to the best performer of the season Xavi or Sneijder should have easily won it imo

Sneijder deserved it. It should be about the performance, not the talent.

In other words if RM win all that is to be won and Benzema scores 50+ goals in all competitions should he win the Ballon d'Or will that automatically make him the best player?

If Benzema manages to do what you've said above and if he wins the Ballon D'or ,that'll make him the best player for that particular year which is the very meaning of the award ,it doesnt necessarily mean he is better than Messi ,its just he would have outshone him for that particular year.

Its not only about about assists and Goalscoring record but also in terms of influence and impact for a particular team in that particular year.

In that respect Sneijder did really deserve to be in the Top 3 for his influential perfomances for Inter alone.I am not going much into his WC perfomances as i dont think he was really awe-inspiring for the dutch (even though he was joint top scorer) like he was for Internazionale.

Xavi for me was one of the most influential players for Barca and Spain and seeing it was a WC year i expected him to win the Ballon D'or.2010 was definitely the most unpredictable year for the Ballon D'or.

More often than not forwards seem to bag this prized award and even if you gave an argument for Milito for the particular year of 2009-10 you have to remember that Milito won UEFA player of the year if i'm correct and that might be the reason why he dint make the cut.

This is a random voting process and each person will have his own criteria.
And that is that you know.There is no really answer for this.

Saetablanca wrote:Its not based about any criteria, not any more. They changed it so Messi could win in 2010. Now, its just a popularity contest.

Popularity contest?



According to Google Trends, Cristiano Ronaldo was more popular than Messi until 2009, as popular as Messi in 2010, and just less popular than Messi in 2011.

By your logic, he should have won Ballon D'Or 2009 and be at least second in 2010.

Isn't it just more likely that in World Football most people think Messi has been the best player by far this last 3 years, and thus, deserving to win the "best player of the season" award?

If we are talking about bad Ballon d'Or prizes, the benchmark is definitely not Messi in 2010, but Cannavaro in 2006.

free_cat wrote:

Saetablanca wrote:Its not based about any criteria, not any more. They changed it so Messi could win in 2010. Now, its just a popularity contest.

Popularity contest?



According to Google Trends, Cristiano Ronaldo was more popular than Messi until 2009, as popular as Messi in 2010, and just less popular than Messi in 2011.

By your logic, he should have won Ballon D'Or 2009 and be at least second in 2010.

Isn't it just more likely that in World Football most people think Messi has been the best player by far this last 3 years, and thus, deserving to win the "best player of the season" award?

If we are talking about bad Ballon d'Or prizes, the benchmark is definitely not Messi in 2010, but Cannavaro in 2006.

Are you serious?

We all know the hate Ronaldo gets from pretty much everywhere but Real Madrid fans, and even some of those. Id go as far as to say that at least 70% of those mentions are negative ones. So your little graph doesnt make sense.

At least when Cannavaro won, the Ballon d'Or had specific standards, such as being biased towards the WC. They abandoned that for Messi in 2010, so that is worse.

baresi wrote:

billionmillion wrote:its of course for the best player what you think. you really dont know what you are talking about

Well Maradona has never won one, and he is one of the Greatest Of All Time.
So I guess you know exactly what you are talking about.

We all know why maradona didnt win it, he was a south american player. rules were different that time. again you prove that you dont know what you are talking about you could try to prove me wrong using another ways, example you could say how ronaldinho didnt win it in 2006 when he was best player but cannavaro won it. but seems you dont have so much intelligence (you look like a 11-12 years old fanboy to me)

billionmillion wrote:

baresi wrote:

billionmillion wrote:its of course for the best player what you think. you really dont know what you are talking about

Well Maradona has never won one, and he is one of the Greatest Of All Time.
So I guess you know exactly what you are talking about.

We all know why maradona didnt win it, he was a south american player. rules were different that time. again you prove that you dont know what you are talking about you could try to prove me wrong using another ways, example you could say how ronaldinho didnt win it in 2006 when he was best player but cannavaro won it. but seems you dont have so much intelligence (you look like a 11-12 years old fanboy to me)

Never knew that was the rule now that makes me feel a lot better about why Maradona hasn't won it !!!!!!


Now if you want to argue about R80 then thats fine but that only solidifies my opinion, since those where the old good days when the Ballon d'Or had credibility and some rules and the priority was ALWAYS for WC finalists even after including non europeans.

1) 1966 England WC winners Ballon winner Bobby Charlton
2) 1974 WC winner Germany Ballon winner Johan Cruyff WC finalist
3) 1982 Italy WC winners Ballon winner Paolo Rossi
4) 1990 Germany WC winners Ballon winner Lothar Matthaus
5) 1998 France WC winners Ballon winner Zidane
6) 2002 Brazil WC winners Ballon winner Ronaldo
7) 2006 Italy WC winners Ballon winner Cannavaro
8 ) 2010 Spain WC winners Ballon winner Messi
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Now after a slight search much of the confusion has gone and here is why:

Whether we like it or not, CR7, Messi, Ronaldo both have won the Ballon d'Or ONCE, although Messi edges CR7 with the FIFA WORLD PLAYER OF THE YEAR or the FIFA Ballon d'or by two titles.

In 2010 Ballon d'Or was merged with "FIFA WORLD PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARD" and that's when it started becoming a joke. Pre the merge there were some rules that actually guided the winner, but not any more.

"In the first year since FIFA slurped up France Football's Ballon d'Or award and combined it with the FIFA World Player of the Year award, there was the requisite amount of outrage and controversy generally associated with a FIFA spectacle. First, there was shock that Wesley Sneijder was not a part of the three-man, all Barca all the time shortlist, then, when Lionel Messi was announced the winner, there was venom spewed in Spain over the fact that he beat out his two World Cup winning teammates, Xavi and Andres Iniesta.
As it turns out, had this merger of awards not happened, Football Italia alerts us that Wesley Sneijder not only would have finished in the top three, but he would have won it by a slim margin.

Under the old Ballon d'Or voting system, only members of the media were polled to decide the winner and two runners-up, while national team coaches and captains did the same for the FIFA World Player of the Year. Now, all three groups combine for a clusterhump of invalid votes and nameless voters.
But had it just been left to media votes, Sneijder would have won the Ballon d'Or even though (by my amateur calculations) he had fewer first place votes (35) than both Iniesta (40) and Xavi (36). His greater number of second and third place votes gave him 320 points from the media, beating Iniesta's 313 and leaving Xavi and Messi to finish third and fourth, respectively.
So, for the little it's worth, Sneijder would have won the award had Sepp Blatter waited just one more year to gobble up the Ballon d'Or........
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SO TO MAKE A LONG STROY SHORT THIS FIFA BALLON d'Or is complete joke, no credibility what so ever it turned more into PR contest and Blatter balls licking.

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To prove someone is young you had to go all the way to 12-14 tells me your maturity level is not beyond 15-16, oh wait you're only a 27 yrs old fan boy why did I even bother.

[quote="baresi
SO TO MAKE A LONG STROY SHORT THIS FIFA BALLON d'Or is complete joke, no credibility what so ever it turned more into PR contest and Blatter balls licking.
[/quote]

this

Saetablanca wrote:

free_cat wrote:

Saetablanca wrote:Its not based about any criteria, not any more. They changed it so Messi could win in 2010. Now, its just a popularity contest.

Popularity contest?



According to Google Trends, Cristiano Ronaldo was more popular than Messi until 2009, as popular as Messi in 2010, and just less popular than Messi in 2011.

By your logic, he should have won Ballon D'Or 2009 and be at least second in 2010.

Isn't it just more likely that in World Football most people think Messi has been the best player by far this last 3 years, and thus, deserving to win the "best player of the season" award?

If we are talking about bad Ballon d'Or prizes, the benchmark is definitely not Messi in 2010, but Cannavaro in 2006.

Are you serious?

We all know the hate Ronaldo gets from pretty much everywhere but Real Madrid fans, and even some of those. Id go as far as to say that at least 70% of those mentions are negative ones. So your little graph doesnt make sense.

At least when Cannavaro won, the Ballon d'Or had specific standards, such as being biased towards the WC. They abandoned that for Messi in 2010, so that is worse.

Google trends has nothing to do with "mentions". It's a count of searches. I don't thihnk people who dislikes Ronaldo will search for his name, I, for instances, have never done that, while I've searched about Messi several times. It's a tremendous indicator on popularity.

As far as I know, the Ballon d'Or doesn't have any specific criteria on voting. They just ask their journalists and now captains and coaches who they think is the best player in the world for this season and they vote. Everyone considers the facotrs they want.

We all know in 2006 Cannavaro wasn't, by any means, the best player in the world. Perhaps not even the best player in Italy NT. While Messi was by far the best player in the world in 2010. In your opinion, Snejder should have won it by his acomplishments with your team. It's an opinion. The 400+ people who voted had another and prefered to vote the best player in the world by far. Deal with it.

Some say the Ballon d'Or is a joke since it merged with the FIFA World Player.
IMO, the FIFA world player ALWAYS was a better award than the Ballon d'Or. More legitimated (voted for people who are INTO football, not stupid journalists like Tomas Roncero, Guillem Balague and so on) and more loyal to what this award should be: chosing the best player in the world in a given year.

Aren't more votes supposed to be better as it tends to remove certain biases from the sample?

IMO, merging the FIFA world player of the year and the Balon D'or removed the WC bias from the voting. Which is actually a good thing. Because all things said and done, WC is not a big tournament in terms of the number of matches. It would be akin to voting with a bias towards the CL winner every year (Does this bias exist?)

Secondly, as the two awards are merged and Sneijder did not win the award, and he does if we only consider the media, then does this mean the World Player of The Year award voters (which include the coaches and the captains) dont consider the WC important?

kiranr wrote:Secondly, as the two awards are merged and Sneijder did not win the award, and he does if we only consider the media, then does this mean the World Player of The Year award voters (which include the coaches and the captains) dont consider the WC important?

On the other hand, only one coach and a handful of players ever win the WC, so maybe it is a tactical vote by the non-winners to lessen the importance of the WC?

rwo power wrote:

kiranr wrote:Secondly, as the two awards are merged and Sneijder did not win the award, and he does if we only consider the media, then does this mean the World Player of The Year award voters (which include the coaches and the captains) dont consider the WC important?

On the other hand, only one coach and a handful of players ever win the WC, so maybe it is a tactical vote by the non-winners to lessen the importance of the WC?

I did think about that one, but you put the question across well. I was thinking along the lines of envy lol.

But, Fifa World Player of The Year awards in the world cup years are

1994 Brazil WC winners: winner Romario
1998 France WC winners: winner Zidane
2002 Brazil WC winners: winner Ronaldo
2006 Italy WC winners: winner Cannavaro

So that could not be the case...