Leslie Davies - the best player in Europe for the 2011/12 season?

Jimmy Iovine

A player for Bangor City in Wales has managed to make it on to the 32 man shortlist for UEFA's Best Player in Europe Award for last season.

Leslie Davies managed to score 16 goals in the league last season. Not a bad return for a winger. He managed 3 more than Mario Balotelli and he wasn't far off the likes of Messi and Ronaldo.

He's on the list with the likes of Xavi, Messi, CRonaldo, Casillas, Pirlo, Aguero, Kompany and Toure.

It's incredible that he ever managed to make the list. According to UEFA the voting system is like this:

a jury of journalists from each of UEFA's 53 member associations has provided a list of their best-ranked players. The players are ordered from one to five, with the first receiving five points, the second four points and so on.

I presume that a Welsh journalist put Davies in there for the laugh, but how he gained enough points to get onto the list is beyond me. I highly doubt that anyone else voted for him so it's probably reasonable to assume that he made the list after gaining a mere 5 points in the voting.

I found a video of one of his goals from last season and it's pretty brilliant. It might be a cross that ended up being a shot but we won't take it away from him. It's right at the start of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Qu0xsEXbM

I'm going over to Bangor next year to go to college there and I'll be going to a few of their matches. Hopefully Les will be there next season, but I've a feeling he could be off in Italy or Spain playing for one of the big clubs out there.

double GG

Was just going to post about it.

Here's a pic of him, not that anyone needs reminding of such a household name.

MD1990

Liverpool are making a 35 Million Pound bid for him i heard

rednik

MD1990 wrote: »

Liverpool are making a 35 Million Pound bid for him i heard

+ Andy Carroll.

markie29

MD1990 wrote: »

Liverpool are making a 35 Million Pound bid for him i heard

you heard wrong my good man....its 40million...he is rumoured to be better than Carroll.

ctrl-alt-delete

double GG wrote: »

Was just going to post about it.

Here's a pic of him, not that anyone needs reminding of such a household name.

1,2,3,4,5 yellow jerseys ****ting themselves,

Very Iniesta like this picture!

BKC

Jimmy Iovine wrote: »

I found a video of one of his goals from last season and it's pretty brilliant. It might be a cross that ended up being a shot but we won't take it away from him. It's right at the start of the video.

I definitely think he meant it to be fair.

Jimmy Iovine

ctrl-alt-delete wrote: »

1,2,3,4,5 yellow jerseys ****ting themselves,

Very Iniesta like this picture!

Hopefully Darkman will be along to make a thread about him soon :P.

Great achievement for Davies anyway, and a great advertisement for the Welsh league. It's being reported on by NBC and the Washington Post.

G.K.

He's got my totally unbiased vote!

Muff_Daddy

Jimmy Iovine wrote: »

he wasn't far off the likes of Messi and Ronaldo.

Ah he was Ted.

Jimmy Iovine

I wonder how Gareth Bale must be feeling. According to this Davies seems to be the best Welsh winger over the past season. Could Les force his way into the Welsh squad on the back of this news?

G.K.

If I'm honest we need all we can get for the wings. after Bale, Ledley and maybe Robson-Kanu we've nothing.

Jimmy Iovine

Who was the last player to play for Wales while he was playing for a team in the Welsh league?

I know the likes of Clayton Blackmore and Neville Southall have played for Welsh teams but that was after their international career had ended.

Omackeral

Three boys from Llanelli AFC (what a fun word to say) have Welsh caps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jenkins 16 Caps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Legg 6 Caps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Bowen_(footballer) 2 Caps.

dreamers75

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/sport-news/welsh-football-league/2012/07/17/les-davies-deserves-uefa-nomination-says-the-journalist-who-voted-for-him-post-sport-s-dave-jones-55578-31408698/

tolosenc

No Davies on the shortlist.

Jokeshop.

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/european/2012/0814/333584-iniesta-messi-and-ronaldo-niminated/

[Also like the typo in the URL slug!]

Jimmy Iovine

Went to my first Bangor match today and the big man himself was playing. He had a brilliant game. One goal, an assist and he rattled the crossbar in the second half.

He dominated in the air. I reckon he went up for a header near enough to 50 times in the whole game and he only lost out twice. They couldn't deal with him at all. It was like Fellaini against United a few weeks back.

His goal came straight from a corner, and naturally enough he scored it with his head. His chance in the second half was with his head as well. His assist for the goal was very nice. Did well to get his head up and see the free player and then execute the pass.

He doesn't appear to be in the greatest shape and his overall play lacks the finesse of Messi and Xavi, but he's not too bad.