Ballon d'Or Shortlist (the one that matters!)

Seaneh

It's a wee bit better than the FIFA list but because they have to have a 50-man shortlist it has a fair bit of dad wood.

This is the one the players all want to win, it's the one that matters.

List:
Eric Abidal (Barcelona), France.
Daniel Alves (Sevilla), Brazil.
David Beckham (LA Galaxy), England.
Dimitar Berbatov (Tottenham), Bulgaria.
Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Italy.
Fabio Cannavaro (Real Madrid), Italy.
Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Spain.
Petr Cech (Chelsea), Czech Republic.
Rogerio Ceni (San Paolo), Brazil.
Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United), Portugal.
Deco (Barcelona), Portugal.
Mahamadou Diarra (Real Madrid), Mali.
Diego (Werder Bremen), Brazil.
Didier Drogba (Chelsea), Ivory Coast.
Michael Essien (Chelsea), Ghana.
Samuel Eto’o (Barcelona), Cameroon.
Francesc Fabregas (Arsenal), Spain.
Gennaro Gattuso (Milan), Italy.
Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), England.
Ryan Giggs (Manchester United), Wales.
Thierry Henry (Barcelona), France.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter), Sweden.
Filippo Inzaghi (Milan), Italy.
Kaka` (Milan), Brazil.
Frederic Kanoute` (Sevilla), Mali.
Miroslav Klose (Bayern Munich), Germany.
Younis Mahmoud (Algharafa), Iraq.
Paolo Maldini (Milan), Italy.
Florent Malouda (Chelsea), France.
Lionel Andres Messi (Barcelona), Argentina.
Shunsuke Nakamura (Celtic), Japan.
Guillermo Ochoa (America Mexico), Mexico.
Andrea Pirlo (Milan), Italy.
Ricardo Quaresma (Porto), Portugal.
Raul (Real Madrid), Spain.
Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich), France.
Juan Roman Riquelme (Villarreal), Argentina.
Robinho (Real Madrid), Brazil.
Ronaldinho (Barcelona), Brazil.
Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), England.
Paul Scholes (Manchester United), England.
Clarence Seedorf (Milan), Holland.
Carlos Tevez (Manchester United), Argentina.
Luca Toni (Bayern Munich), Italy.
Kolo Toure` (Arsenal), Ivory Coast.
Jose` Fernando Torres (Liverpool), Spain.
Francesco Totti (Roma), Italy.
Ruud van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid), Holland.
Robin van Persie (Arsenal), Holland.
David Villa (Valencia), Spain.

PHB

Bit harsh on the old defenders, but seems a decent enough list

zAbbo

Younis Mahmoud is a shoe in

AnCapaillMor

Delighted to see Kolo on the list.

weemcd

anyone find the lack of Cambiasso on shortlist like this and what seems like every other one i read a bit of a disappointment?

Seaneh

Not really.

He was never likely to win anyway.

The lack of players like totti and Ibrahimovich from the FIFA list was more appauling imho.

x in the city

DAVID BECKHAM is a bleedin joke, how is he on the shortlist.. to give it some marketing appaeal>>>?!

he was good about 5 years ago. he is past his prime and should pack it in and concentrate on the modelling shots imo.

el rabitos

x in the city wrote: »

DAVID BECKHAM is a bleedin joke, how is he on the shortlist.. to give it some marketing appaeal>>>?!

he was good about 5 years ago. he is past his prime and should pack it in and concentrate on the modelling shots imo.

he had a great second half of last season, definitely enough to at least get him on the list.

AnCapaillMor

Yeah he really proved capello wrong, had to be great to make Capello acknowledge he screwed up. Hooked up really well with RVN.

kinaldo

So many Real Madrid players... but no Sergio Ramos, or the Iron Man as they're now calling him. He was phenomenal last season... this season... makes no sense.

Guy:Incognito

No Jimmy Bullard?:eek:

CantGetNoSleep

Or Andy Keogh, as a right winger

evad_lhorg

well in fariness its not going to be anyone other than Kaka

Xavi6

So we have Eric Abidal and Ryan Giggs but no Xavi or Iniesta? The mind boggles.

evad_lhorg

Xavi6 wrote: »

So we have Eric Abidal and Ryan Giggs but no Xavi or Iniesta? The mind boggles.

because these things tend to be effected by championship winners. both of which won their leagues last season.

MrPillowTalk

No Vidic? definately deserves to make that list.

Dont be at yourself

Younis Mahmoud (Algharafa), Iraq.

Who?

Mr Alan

Does seem a bit strange not having Terry,Carragher and Vidic on the list, but having Toure.
Guess they made a decision to have only one premier league CB? At a quick glance they only have Maldini from Italy and Cannavaro from Spain too.

Am i the only suprised that Cech is in it ahead of Reina? Reina was the better goalie last year and Cech missed a fair chunk of the season, no? Or is that just my club allegiance has me biased!?

PHB

Cech missed a fair chunk of last season, but when he was back he was excellent. I'm not surprised to see him there at all. I didn't think Reina was particuarly special last season, just a standard strong season. He was much better the season before imo.

_blank_

Mr Alan wrote: »

Or is that just my club allegiance has me biased!?

Well, it does in every other thread, why would this one be different.

Cech is a much better 'keeper than Reina.

Reina makes mistakes that cost his team points. Cech doesn't.

Trampas

All these awards are a joke.

Why is is Beckham in it?

I am going to get slated but what has Tevez done this year. He was missing for the 4 months of the year when with the hammers and if he hadn't move from the hammers to manu he wouldn't be in it.

Mr Alan

Cech made more mistakes that Reina last year.
Cech was injured for a bit of the season.
Reina performed heroics in a CL semi final.
Reina conceed the least amount of goals in the PL (for the second year running).

I think my point is very valid Betty

PHB

Lads, honestly, shut up about Beckham. Anybody who actually saw him play towards the end of last season would know why he was there.

Tevez is a bit dodgy, but his end of season form kept West Ham up almost single-handly.

Cech made more mistakes than Reina, I'd be surprised if that was true. Reina concedded the least amount of goals, fair enough, but that isn't necessarily an indicator of a good goalie. Look at Casillas, the amount of goals he concedes is pretty high, but the standard of his keeping is utterly immense.

Mr Alan

Cech made numerous mistakes when he returned from injury which were very un-cechlike.

I agree thats its hard to compare goalies who play in different teams who use different styles of play. Eg. Utds attacking style of play VS Liverpool midfield dominace,breaking down teams. But with Chelsea and Liverpool last year, i think its an easy enough comparrison to make.

PHB

Except that Essien was their CB for a large portion of it I really don't rate Reina as high as some people do, yes he is a very good keeper who appears to be an excellent Peno taker, but a good comparision between Reina and Cech is the comparison between Dida and Buffon. Sure Dida was the one who won the CL for Milan in that shootout, but if you had to choose between who you'd have in their team, I think I know what 99% of the world would pick

Mr Alan

I aint doubting that Cech is an amazing goalie, probably better than Reina.... i am simply saying i have no idea how Cech can be on the list for LAST YEAR and Reina not.

Trampas

Buffon was playing Serie B last season.

So only proper matches had has was with Italy.

So handful of games

Jazzy

Mr Alan wrote: »

Am i the only suprised that Cech is in it ahead of Reina? Reina was the better goalie last year and Cech missed a fair chunk of the season, no? Or is that just my club allegiance has me biased!?

its the liverpool blinkers on. do they ever come off ?

Tusky

DesF wrote: »

Well, it does in every other thread, why would this one be different.

Cech is a much better 'keeper than Reina.

Reina makes mistakes that cost his team points. Cech doesn't.

In fairness all keepers maker mistakes. Reina makes very very few and has the most clean sheets in the premiership for the last two seasons. While I dont think there is much between him and Cech, I still think Cech is the better keeper.

eirebhoy

Tusky wrote: »

In fairness all keepers maker mistakes. Reina makes very very few

I wouldn't say that. Maybe it's the punch the ball tactic he has that makes him look vulnerable.

tdv

Riquelme to win.

Peyton Manning

Mr Alan is right though. Cech was missing for a good bit of last year, and wasnt on top form when he came back which coincided with the absense of Terry IIRC. In my opinion, yes Cech is the best goalie in the league but last season even I can admit that Reina was better.

Having said that, it really doesnt matter who is in this shortlist as long as Kaka, C. Ronaldo, Messi and Totti are there because it will only be one of them who wins, most likely Kaka despite his irritating game raising abilities.

PHB

eirebhoy wrote: »

I wouldn't say that. Maybe it's the punch the ball tactic he has that makes him look vulnerable.

Indeed, there have been quite a few games where he's flapped at a lot of crosses for no particular reason. People overlook his flaws because of his heroics in penalties.

Mr Alan

Archimedes wrote: »

Mr Alan is right

I'm in shock

PHB wrote: »

Indeed, there have been quite a few games where he's flapped at a lot of crosses for no particular reason. People overlook his flaws because of his heroics in penalties.

There has been times he has come for crosses and not gotten them, but apart from Everton last year i can't really remember the last time he cost us a goal?

People overlook his consistant displays, because he is foreign, a bit mental and likes punching the ball imo.

Peyton Manning

tdv wrote: »

Riquelme to win.

I wish. His performances in the Copa Libertadores (sp?) last year were breathtaking. But he wont win it.

eirebhoy

Mr Alan wrote: »

People overlook his consistant displays, because he is foreign, a bit mental and likes punching the ball imo.

These are stats from the 05/06:

[B]Given   Cech    Reina   Lehmann  Robinson[/B]
[B]Catches[/B] 	        47 	52 	31 	93 	33
[B]Catch Success Rate %[/B] 	98% 	95% 	86% 	94% 	89%

He's dodgy under a high ball imo.

Tusky

eirebhoy wrote: »

These are stats from the 05/06:

[B]Given   Cech    Reina   Lehmann  Robinson[/B]
[B]Catches[/B] 	        47 	52 	31 	93 	33
[B]Catch Success Rate %[/B] 	98% 	95% 	86% 	94% 	89%

He's dodgy under a high ball imo.

Well the fact that those stats show Robinson to be a better keeper completely undermine them...as Reina is much much better.

PHB

Robinson is **** at dealing with long shots, in general he's a pretty good keeper. Those stats show a very simple thing, in terms of catching crosses that you attempt to catch, Reina is relatively poor at it. When you take into account the fact he punches the difficult ones, it makes the others look even better.

eirebhoy

Tusky wrote: »

Well the fact that those stats show Robinson to be a better keeper undermine them

Of course that one stat doesn't tell you how good each keeper is.

Mr Alan

So Reinas weakness is catching balls from crosses, think most people know that, the fact that he is generally an excellent puncher of the ball, his distribution is second to none, he is a class shot stopper, concedes less goals than any other goalies and has no equal in a penalty shootout.

eirebhoy

Sums up Artur Boruc too. Boruc is probably a better shot stopper actually.

Mr Alan

Boruc is an excellent goalie, he makes considerably more mistakes than Reina though.

yahoo_moe

PHB wrote: »

Tevez is a bit dodgy, but his end of season form kept West Ham up almost single-handly.

In fairness though, I don't think a lower-profile player would get that attention - I don't recall Jon Stead getting a Ballon D'Or nomination the year he kept Blackburn up

Nunu

People complain about Beckham being on the shortlist but don't even bat an eyelid on Cannavaro.
For him to be the sole defender representing La Liga is hilarious - ahead of the likes of Puyol, Milito, Ayala and Ramos. He was worse than ordinary last season and so far this season. ...obviously still getting mileage off his wonderful World Cup showing.

PHB

yahoo_moe wrote: »

In fairness though, I don't think a lower-profile player would get that attention - I don't recall Jon Stead getting a Ballon D'Or nomination the year he kept Blackburn up

Indeed, or Richardson when he kept West Brom up. No denying it's not particuarly fair and a lot of it is on rep, but to be honest, it's better than most of the other ones