There is no ‘I’ in Ballon d’Or

Even Ronaldo's biggest critics could not help but be touched by his emotional acceptance speech.

Eventual winner Cristiano Ronaldo voted for Mesut Ozil, Gareth Bale and Radamel Falcao as his three choices. His closest rival, Lionel Messi, voted for teammates Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Neymar. The FIFPro World XI was dominated by Barcelona and featured no Borussia Dortmund players.

While Ronaldo manages to divide opinions like no other, even his biggest critics could not help but be touched by his emotional acceptance speech. Real Madrid fans rejoiced all over, perhaps amusingly; Manchester United fans rejoiced even harder. However, the award confirmed Arsene Wenger’s biggest fear — the Ballon d’Or is trying to promote individuality in a team game to the point where it is starting to hurt the sport.

Real Madrid won exactly zero trophies, Barcelona fared little better considering the competition in La Liga. The two teams were humiliated in Germany and Ronaldo was powerless as a Falcao inspired Athletico Madrid won the Cup of Kings — The Copa del Ray. Meanwhile, Franck Ribery won five trophies and was the best player in the best team and yet only finished third.

Once a coveted prize, whispers of contempt slowly started surfacing when Wesley Sneijder failed to win the award after guiding Inter Milan to a historic treble. Had it not been for Arjen Robben’s inability to beat Iker Casillas when through on goal, he would have had won the World Cup for Holland with one fell swoop of his deadly leg, a volleyed pass that tore through the heart of the Spanish defence. However, it was ultimately Messi – albeit a 91-goal Messi – who won the award. His Barcelona teammate, Iniesta, who inspired Spain to the World Cup trophy and scored the winner in the final, was also overlooked. Both midfielders were the key reasons their teams won the respective trophies, but Messi’s goals won in the end.

If goals are the main criterion for the Ballon d’Or then Pakistan striker Essa Khan has scored more international goals than Emile Heskey and Francesco Totti combined. Hence, according to Ballon d’Or standards, Pakistan’s set-piece specialist was a better player than the two of them put together. If a player’s importance to his team is considered, then Ribery could have been replaced by any one of Robin van Persie, Gareth Bale or Luis Suarez.

The FIFPro World XI was an even bigger mess than the Ballon d’Or. As many as four Barcelona players were selected despite them being the worst semi-finalist. They were tested to the limits by PSG and AC Milan. Had the French champions been a little more clinical, Bayern Munich would have been destroying them instead of the Catalonians. That was not the case and what happened in the semi was humiliating to say the least.

Real Madrid’s Sergio Ramos made the team despite being on the receiving end of a 4-1 drubbing at the Westfalenstadion, despite being the man a certain Robert Lewandowski took a special liking to on the night. Defensively, Dani Alves was constantly tormented in Europe and Spain. Even though he was a potent attacking threat in the league, Bayern’s David Alaba was surely a better candidate. Again, it seems that Fifa are more interested in promoting football as a game of individuals or are too caught up in the El Classico hype to look anywhere else.

Perhaps it is time to scrap this award and focus on celebrating team players such as Ribery, Sniejder, Gennaro Gattuso and Iniesta as much as individualists such as Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Perhaps it is time to concentrate on the first part of football’s official name — association football.

The writer is a sub-editor at

The Express Tribune

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2014.

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