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Messi wins Ballon d’Or
Published by Ian John on December 1, 2009
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Barcelona star Lionel Messi will celebrate an incredible 2009 after he was announced as the European Footballer of the year last night. Messi was awarded the prestigious Ballon d’Or by a record margin, beating Real Madrid rival Cristiano Ronaldo into second place. Barcelona’s all conquering side of last season also contributed three more players to the top five with midfielders Xavi and Iniesta and striker Samuel Eto’o (now at Inter) third, fourth and fifth respectively.
Messi stated;
“Honestly, I knew that I was among the favourites because Barcelona had a fruitful year in 2009, but I didn’t expect to win with such a margin. The Ballon d’Or is very important to me. All the players who won it were great players, and some great players never won it.
“For me it’s a big honour to win. I dedicate it to my family, they were always present when I needed them and sometimes felt even stronger emotions than me.”
Messi’s success, given his 23 league goals, 6 Copa Del Rey goals, plus finishing as top scorer in the Champions League competition itself, was widely expected by many and is seen by some as confirmation that the diminutive Argentinian is now the finest player in the world. Something that Messi will hope to prove over the next year with Barcelona and Argentina.
English representatives in the top ten start at eighth where Wayne Rooney was followed quickly by Didier Drogba, Steven Gerrard and in 11th Fernando Torres.
While I have no axe to grind with any of the players ahead of the English based quartet from Barcelona, nor Cristiano Ronaldo (although I don’t feel he was quite as good last season as he has been in the past), I am baffled how “experts” can rate Kaka and Ibrahimovic as better than Rooney, Drogba, Gerrard and Torres. Neither of these players inspired their teams to any Champions League successes of note and indeed other than being subject to hefty transfers, and playing for clubs that experts love to love, I can’t fathom as to why they were backed ahead of others.
But there you go, football is a game of opinions and everyone has a right to voice theirs.
Messi is a fitting winner of the award and should go on to star in the World Cup Finals for Argentina. It completes a three year climb to the summit of European football, Messi finished third in 2007, second in 2008 and finally was voted top playetr this year. Interestingly he also becomes the first Argentinian player to win the trophy as his mentor and manager at international level, Diego Maradona, never lifted the trophy as up until 1995, the rules were that only European born players were eligible for the award.
Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco Van Basten have each won the trophy a record three times, with Alfredo Di Stefano, Franz Beckenbauer, Kevin Keegan, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Brazil striker Ronaldo each having won the award twice.
Image Courtesy of ***Adrien Portugal*** at Flickr.com
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Nabyl Charania on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 6:49 pm
Messi is a deserving winner. I feel bad for Benzema, 0 votes
??????? on Fri, 14th Jan 2011 1:34 pm
I believe that the order for the winners of the Ballon dor are the following: Messi, Ronaldo, and third is still undecided for me. This is based on the two really best players (not team achievements) but individual performances of 2010.