This year's Ballon d'Or (also known as the FIFA Player of the Year award) went to Lionel Messi for the second consecutive year.
Almost everything that I have read, heard, seen, anything relating to this have all disagreed with the selection of Lionel Messi, and I cannot agree more fully with these experts.
Certainly Messi is a deserved candidate, as were Xavi and Iniesta, but let us look at Messi (the Winner) and Wesley Sneijder, the player who won the media and experts vote by a landslide even though he was not a finalist.
Messi played for the best team in the world, FC Barcelona.
Sneijder played for the best team in Italy, Inter Milan.
Barcelona with Messi won La Liga and the domestic cup, and Inter won the Serie A as well as their domestic cup.So far, it's a draw.
Inter Milan BEAT Barcelona 3-1 and advanced 3-2 on aggregate. Sorry Messi, but Wesley gets the head to head edge here.
How about International play?
Messi, the so-called best player in the world, and his Argentina team could not even make it past the second round of the knock out stage of the 2010 World Cup. Oh by the way, he didn't even score a goal during the entire world cup!
Sneijder, tied for the highest-scorer in the World Cup with 5 goals and he was one game away from being a World Cup Champion.
Now I am by no means saying that Messi is not deserving of the award... But look at what Sneijder has done, on teams that weren't nearly as good as any of the teams Messi was on. I would think that if Messi was truly the best player of 2010, that he would have scored at least ONE goal in the 2010 World Cup.
This entire thing stinks of FIFA's ongoing problems that have come up recently with the 2018/2022 World Cup Locations, the tainted voting process, etc.
Personally, of the three finalists (Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta), I probably would have voted for Xavi. Overall, my vote, and a lot of the expert's votes, is for Wesley Sneijder.
The FIFA coach of the Year was Jose Mourinho, who coached the Inter Milan team to a fantastic season including the perfect Triple for club play including the Champions League Victory (2-0) over F.C. Bayern Munich.
The FIFA Puskas Award for the Most Beautiful Goal of the Year went to F.C. Bayern Munich's Hamit Altintop on a volley off of a corner for his Turkish international side against Kazakhstan. Seriously, if you have not seen this goal, go watch it, it is UNREAL. Just search for "Hamit Altintop goal Kazakhstan", trust me, you wont be disappointed.
That is all for soccer right now... more to follow once the Champion's League knock out round starts up
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