And the FIFA Ballon d’Or Winner is … Lionel Messi
The FIFA Ballon d’Or was awarded today. It was a first as the FIFA awards were merged with the prestigious Ballon d’Or award this year. Barcelona teammates Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Xavi were all candidates but it was Messi who collected the first ever award.
Marta won the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year, an honor that is now very familiar to the Brazilian who collected her 5th.
The FIFA/FIFPro World XI awards were handed out to the best 11 players in the world for 2010. They were: Iker Casillas, Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol, Maicon, Lucio, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Wesley Sneijder, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and David Villa.
Coach of the year was a new award this year and it was awarded to a male and a female. Jose Mourinho was the male recipient and Germany’s national team coach since 2005, Silvia Neid, was the female coach of the year.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was honored with the prestigious FIFA Presidential Award and except for his praise of Sepp Blatter gave a heart warming and entertaining speech.
Hamit Altintop won the FIFA Puskas Award for the best goal of 2010 and there were some fantastic strikes and dribbles to goal in the competition.
Highlights of the proceedings can be seen here at the FIFA site.
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FIFA being constantly on the back foot of change I can deal with. Qatar getting the 2022 World Cup I’ll accept. But Matty Burrows won goal of the year and Hamit Altintop freakin’ knows it!
ohh my, the Burrows backheal was legendary. Puskas winner in my book.
No Ballon D’Or finalists are from the BPL. Many rate the BPL as the biggest league, perhaps it is more appropriate to say it is the most competetive, fastest paced league, and most televised league. Are La Liga and Serie A more skillful? Maybe other issues come into play; historical root of the clubs, tactical approaches of the manager, quality of life (pay, journalists, expectations, weather)?
Tons of talking points!