Ronaldo does a scream during his acceptance speech.
The FIFA Ballon D'Or was held yesterday in a 90 minute event not lacking in glitz and glamour. Hosted in Zurich by British journalist, Kate Abdo, the success of the event came as a surprise to no one.
FIFA may be plagued by issues of corruption at the moment, but even her most notorious critics couldn't fault the event's organisation. For some of us, the award was already in the bag for Cristiano Ronaldo even before the event. It could have as well been given to him before yesterday. A mere .04 votes separated Lionel Messi from the second runner up, Manuel Neuer. Cristiano was in phenomenal form last year. His goals kept coming. He kept pushing his team mates for victory in all competitions last year. His odd was the FIFA World Cup which he went an unfit player. Some say he should not have gone for the world cup thereby giving chance to a fitter team mate. But come on, C-Boy is a brand! Award well deserved.
Manuel Neuer? He is a field person. On countless occasions he left his goal line to clear the line for his team. A very dependable last line of defence. His command of his defence is near perfect. Sometimes when it seems the team has conceded, like amalinze the cat, he puts up a super save.
Lionel Messi had an average year and so did Barcelona. CR7 outshone the magical Messi in all competitions last year. During the world cup, Messi was not his usual self. Yes he played. But Messi simply wasn't Messi in the world cup.
James Rodriguez had a wonderful outing at the world cup. His sensational goal that gave Colombia the lead against Uruguay in the round of 16 gave him the Puskas award. The award, in honour of Ferenc Puskas, a Hungrarian legend is in recognition of beautiful goals that colour the game. The award,voted for by football fans all over the world on FIFA.com went to the Colombia and Real Madrid forward.
The FIFPro team is as follows;
GK; Manuel Neuer (Germany)
Defence; Philip Lahm (Germany), Sergio Ramos (Spain), David Luiz (Brazil), Thiago Silva (Brazil).
Midfield; Angel Di Maria (Argentina), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Toni Kroos (Germany).
Attack; Lionel Messi (Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Arjen Robben (Netherlands).
Joachim Low (Germany) won the Best (male) coach award and Nadine Kessler (Germany) won the FIFA female footballer of the year.
Another beautiful award given on the night, the FIFA Presidential award was given to Hiroshi Kagawa,90. This is his 10th (tenth) FIFA World Cup. His contribution to the game and passion helped in the development of the game in his native Japan.
As the awards have been concluded, we expect to go back to the basket of corruption allegations against FIFA that have been raging in the past months. It's sad. Football is a beautiful game, a unifying factor and a universal language. Why these men (and women) at the top want to bring it to disrepute beats my imagination.
For the good of the game, we hope that the Blatter led FIFA put their house in order. And I earnestly pray that Blatter takes a bow when his current tenure runs out to enable a fresher person run the show from the top.
We all love football.
Follow Ikenna Enenta on twitter; @ikenna005
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