You can pick holes in the pursuit of an answer to the above questions.
First off, there are many different types of footballer. There are goalkeepers, there are defenders, there are combative midfielders and creative midfielders, there are midfielders who do both. There are wingers and goal scorers. There are wingers who are goal scorers. There are 'goal scorers' who aren't goal scorers...
 |
| "I don't know what I'm doing" Danny Graham*, 2013 |
They're three of the greatest players I'll ever see play the game. I'm in my mid 20s so I can't talk about the names I hear my elders speak of. I haven't seen anything but grainy footage of Duncan Edwards, Di Stefano, Best, Zico, Garincha and the multitude of other players everyone said were imperious in their time.
I just finished reading a book about Duncan Edwards. A player who had glory ripped away from him by disaster. Testimonials speak of his schoolboy days as if he was a behemoth. I've heard the same said about Francis Jeffers and, well... I'll leave it.
Edwards could have tripled England's number of World Cups according to some of the appraisals in this book. You can read and watch all the footage you want but ultimately you're always left wondering how good they were?
How would they cope with the modern day's ballistic pace? In equal measure, how would modern players cope with rubbish pitches and heavy footballs and boots made of lead?
These questions are regularly asked by 'experts' and journalists on football talk shows or on the waste of life punditry on Saturday Night Football. By definition, these are questions you can't answer. There's no way of knowing how Maradona would have coped with modern day football and there's no telling how today's millionaires would cope with yesteryear's impoverished conditions.
Unless you're 150 years old you can't say with certainty that a particular player is the best to ever kick a ball. A debate worth having is who is currently the best player kicking a ball.
The winner of the FIFA Ballon d’Or will be revealed as part of a televised show at the Zurich Kongresshaus on 13 January 2014, during which the FIFA FIFPro World XI, the FIFA Puskás Award – for the most beautiful goal of the year – the FIFA Presidential Award and the FIFA Fair Play Award will also be presented.
So considering the only thing anyone noticed in the preceding paragraph is that the world's best player will be revealed on the 13th Jan let's talk about that. It's widely agreed upon that there are three players in the running. Ribery, Messi and Ronaldo.
Ronaldo has performed individually better than anyone else this season. His abilities fired Portugal to the World Cup against Sweden where he made the man who will probably finish just outside the top three for this prize, Zlatan, look like a run of the mill 30 goal a season man.
Ronaldo last season scored an incredible 55 goals in all competitions. Messi, 60. Ronaldo contributed 12 assists, Messi outshone him with 16.
Cristiano's been sulking in the enormous shadow of the diminutive Lionel Messi for the last five seasons. But this campaign it has started differently.
67 goals in 57 appearances for club and country in 2013 makes Ronaldo the top scoring player in the world with a better goals to game ratio than anyone else. Messi is injured until 2014 and only managed a mere 45 goals in 46 games so if there was ever going to be a chance for Ronaldo to win the ballon d'or (Ball of the World) again surely the time is now.
Ribery will feel aggrieved to have achieved so much and yet get such a minuscule look in but if we're honest with ourselves, was he really any better than Arjen Robben or Philipp Lahm last season? Ribery’s 23 assists for Bayern were impressive, his 11 goals less so. The team that won the treble for Jupp Henckes was exactly that. A team. Ribery's contribution was great but he didn't even score the winner in the final.
Messi and Ronaldo are individuals who exist in a league of their own at football's zenith. There are no players anywhere near them, regardless of what the poo dispensers on the television box say about high profile players after they have a world beating six months... come back when your shiny flash in the pan has a world beating six years... you vacuous wastes.
This might be the Portuguese's year considering his statistics trump Messi's for the first time in five years, not to mention the fact that voting reopened during a fortnight when Ronaldo packed his Portugal team mates into his Louis Vuitton man bag, popped it on his back and carried it all the way to Rio.
Who knows how the French will vote?
Will they prove a habitual bunch and revert to default by gifting Messi the prize in a season where the little pepsi juggler hasn't hit the peaks he's scaled year on year for half a decade. Messi got 14 goals in 14 league and Champions League appearances this season before a left hamstring tear on November 10th cut his year short. It's also Messi's first injury for years, which raises it's own concerns. Messi was never injured under Guardiola which prompts the question... has the stitching come loose on Superman's iconic suit?
I'd give it to Ronaldo but then again I do love him. If you love footballers who are really really good at football you should love him too.
*Danny Graham may or may not have ever said this.
No comments:
Post a Comment