Ballon d'Or 2014 - can anyone stop Cristiano Ronaldo?

marbless

According to FIFA's website, the nominees for this years Ballon d'Or will be announced tomorrow.

Can anyone stop Cristiano Ronaldo retaining his crown? The bookmakers made him the big favourite, followed by Messi and T. Muller.

http://www.fifa.com/ballon-dor/index.html

Ronaldo will surely win it.

Not that long ago (start of season iirc) he was good odds for this

MD1990

Neuer could challenge maybe. But Ronaldo ihas easily been the best.

MagicIRL

How often does a non-goalscoring player win the Ballon D'or? And by non-goalscoring, I mean not a constant goal threat, or none at all.

GLaDOS

Only thing going against Ronaldo is his world cup really (Which he shouldn't have played because he was obviously not fit). Has to be Cristiano really.

kryogen

Ronaldo will win it, if he doesn't the award is worthless at this point. He has beent he best player on the planet for 2 years now and top 2 for a lot longer. Most deserving winner by far.

Talib Fiasco

Only Neuer or Lahm could stop him you'd feel. I hope Suarez fairs well too.

dobman88

kryogen wrote: »

Ronaldo will win it, if he doesn't the award is worthless at this point. He has beent he best player on the planet for 2 years now and top 2 for a lot longer. Most deserving winner by far.

Yeah. Just like the World Cup Player of the tournament. No way Messi should have won that (I'm not saying Ronaldo deserved it btw). These awards are meaningless now with players being picked for the sake of it.

MagicMarker

Talib Fiasco wrote: »

I hope Suarez fairs well too.

Not a chance

Pinturicchio

MagicIRL wrote: »

How often does a non-goalscoring player win the Ballon D'or? And by non-goalscoring, I mean not a constant goal threat, or none at all.

Fabio Cannavaro in 2006 was the last one.

kryogen

dobman88 wrote: »

Yeah. Just like the World Cup Player of the tournament. No way Messi should have won that (I'm not saying Ronaldo deserved it btw). These awards are meaningless now with players being picked for the sake of it.

The world cup player of the tournament was a joke alright.

The Ballon D'or has been hard to argue with though in fairness, once I thought Ronaldo should have got it ahead of Messi but other then that its spot on the last few years, the two boys make it pretty easy for them of course.

kryogen

Pinturicchio wrote: »

Fabio Cannavaro in 2006 was the last one.

And even that was incredible at the time! Was delighted for him

MD1990

Here would be my Top 10 players in the world for 2014

1 Ronaldo
2 Messi
3 Suarez
4 Neur
5 Robben
6 Di Maria
7 Lahm
8 Muller
9 Ibrahimovic
10 Bale

kryogen

I wouldn't have any great problem with that list, except the positions of Di Maria and Lahm.

Suarez would be down to 4th, Di Maria 3rd and Lahm 5th for me, but much of a muchness really, the main point would stand that Ronaldo has been the top player which is all that really matters

MD1990

Alexis Sanchez would be very near thatl ist too. Very disapointed Liverpool didn't sign him

Talib Fiasco

No way should Di Maria be third. Had a fine year at Madrid and a decent enough World Cup but he was not better than the likes of Suarez, Lahm or Robben over the year.

kryogen

Talib Fiasco wrote: »

No way should Di Maria be third. Had a fine year at Madrid and a decent enough World Cup but he was not better than the likes of Suarez, Lahm or Robben over the year.

He was extremely influencial in Madrids 10th CL title, and overall had a brilliant season which has continued into this season while settling in to a new team. I still cant believe Madrid let him go. He was immense for them last year

Its no harm having a different opinion obviously, your fully entitled to your own.

Talib Fiasco

kryogen wrote: »

He was extremely influencial in Madrids 10th CL title, and overall had a brilliant season which has continued into this season while settling in to a new team. I still cant believe Madrid let him go. He was immense for them last year

Its no harm having a different opinion obviously, your fully entitled to your own.

Definitely a solid pick and deserves his mention but one would be crazy to not give Suarez the number three spot. All the bullsh*t aside, at times he looked better than Ronaldo and Messi.

kryogen

His ban kinda counts against him though, he has been on the sidelines while the others are still playing, realistically its probably going to take him a while to get back to the level he was at.

If the award was for the 2013/14 season then I would agree, but its not.

The Golden Miller

If Suarez starts to perform to the level of last season now that he's back, he should win it. He matched the other two on goals, and at times the rest of his game was on another level. Single handedly nearly dragged a poor Liverpool team to the title. His creativity, vision, dribbling, passing and playmaking was amazing at times. Feel he's missed too many game though, and the bite of course, but objectively he should win it

Talib Fiasco

If Yaya started this season the same way he ended last season then he'd definitely end up in the top 10...it is arguable that he should be there anyway but I doubt it now.

Will I Amnt

The Golden Miller wrote: »

If Suarez starts to perform to the level of last season now that he's back, he should win it. He matched the other two on goals, and at times the rest of his game was on another level. Single handedly nearly dragged a poor Liverpool team to the title. His creativity, vision, dribbling, passing and playmaking was amazing at times. Feel he's missed too many game though, and the bite of course, but objectively he should win it

Ronaldo and Messi were and are ahead of everyone. There's no way it should be given to Suarez or anybody else for that matter.

Billy86

The Golden Miller wrote: »

If Suarez starts to perform to the level of last season now that he's back, he should win it. He matched the other two on goals, and at times the rest of his game was on another level. Single handedly nearly dragged a poor Liverpool team to the title. His creativity, vision, dribbling, passing and playmaking was amazing at times. Feel he's missed too many game though, and the bite of course, but objectively he should win it

Didn't you say Ronaldo doesn't contribute anything to matches besides scoring goals? Sorry, but there's nothing objective going on there.

Besides causing the sport embarrassment during its major showpiece is a big deal, and missing three months of the year because of it is his own fault and pretty much rules him out on its own. That counts against him no matter what way you look at it, it's not debatable like for example if it were an injury that had kept him out. In those 3 months Ronaldo racked up 20 goals, that's Suarez' loss and his gain.

Also, Ronaldo has 46 goals in 43 games for Madrid this calendar year, and another 3 goals and 5 games for Portugal - 49 goals in 48 games total. Suarez has 12 goals for Liverpool/Barca in 25 games, and 4 goals in 5 games for Uruguay - 16 goals in 29 games. So objectively, the part in bold is categorically false.

Too Tough To Die

In terms of performances Suarez peaked highest for me, but Ronaldo deserves the award up to this point.

marbless

The Golden Miller wrote: »

If Suarez starts to perform to the level of last season now that he's back, he should win it.

But Suarez didn't play a single CL match for Liverpool (not even Europa League), whereas CR set a new scoring record for the Champions League last season and is firing again this season - his goal at Anfield was pure genius.

Taking nothing away from Suarez's part in Liverpool's progress last season, but CR's form in the CL has been exceptional. The number of goals he scored is crazy. And he didn't bite anybody...

Too Tough To Die

marbless wrote: »

But Suarez didn't play a single CL match for Liverpool (not even Europa League), whereas CR set a new scoring record for the Champions League last season and is firing again this season - his goal at Anfield was pure genius.

Taking nothing away from Suarez's part in Liverpool's progress last season, but CR's form in the CL has been exceptional. The number of goals he scored is crazy. And he didn't bite anybody...

Suarez carried a barely above average side to 2nd in the BPL. Ronaldo carried the best squad in world football to a 3rd place league finish.

marbless

MD1990 wrote: »

Here would be my Top 10 players in the world for 2014

1 Ronaldo
2 Messi
3 Suarez
4 Neur
5 Robben
6 Di Maria
7 Lahm
8 Muller
9 Ibrahimovic
10 Bale

Where would you place James Rodriguez?

dundalkfc10

MD1990 wrote: »

Here would be my Top 10 players in the world for 2014

1 Ronaldo
2 Messi
3 Suarez
4 Neur
5 Robben
6 Di Maria
7 Lahm
8 Muller
9 Ibrahimovic
10 Bale

No Neymar in your Top 10?

The lad was better than most at the World Cup and has been Barcelonas best player this season!

Dempsey

I think Neuer should win the Ballon D'Or

kryogen

marbless wrote: »

Where would you place James Rodriguez?

He would surely be in the top 30....but I would have to think about it

kryogen

Dempsey wrote: »

I think Neuer should win the Ballon D'Or

How come? Don't remember him being under siege too many times and putting in match winning performances for either Bayern or Germany? If you swapped him out for another good goal keeper would it really matter in the grand scheme of things? He may be the best in the world at what he does, ie, be a goalkeeper, but I think Barcelona have long proved that you don't really need a top class goal keeper to be successful.

Turtwig

Should easily be Ronaldo's.

Wonder if his World Cup performance will hurt him though?

Ronaldo
Messi

. . .
<big gap>
The rest.

marbless

I hope Lahm gets a decent number of votes. OK, not the most high-profile player in the world, but one of the very best and most consistent in either full-back position or midfield, as he proved yet again for Germany in Brazil. Now retired from the national team - and boy, how Germany are missing him!

homerjay2005

Ronaldo, Messi and Kroos/Di Maria would be the top 3 with Ronaldo winning it.

Billy86

Too Tough To Die wrote: »

Suarez carried a barely above average side to 2nd in the BPL. Ronaldo carried the best squad in world football to a 3rd place league finish.

And the CL title, breaking the goalscoring record along the way with 17 goals in 11 games. But the award isn't based on an August - May season, it is based on January - November/December.

Nothing against Suarez who was unbelievable last season, but his form last season up until I believe January of this year doesn't count for this award, and I feel that is where he was slightly better than the second half (during which he was also unbelievable though, to be fair) and while he was far and away the best player on the team it's not like Sturridge, and from around January onward, Sterling were anything short of playing out of their skin alongside him with the midfield also doing very well getting the ball forward. It did also help them that Liverpool had no CL matches to worry about (though a disadvantage to him for the award since its seen as the biggest stage outside the WC - Ronaldo had 7 goals in 6 games in the KO stages last season), and that the Premier League had no real standout team - City won the league with less points than Madrid, Chelsea had a number of hiccups as Mourinho was trying to reestablish/rebuild them and Man Utd had, well, Moyes.

All that said, up until the WC there could be an argument that Suarez was driving Messi and Ronaldo close, but since then Messi has established some distance and Ronaldo has rocketed away altogether. It's a 12 month award and Suarez has missed 3 of then through nobodies fault but his own.

marbless

Paddy Power's latest odds:
2/9 Cristiano Ronaldo
5/1 Messi
12/1 Muller
20/1 Neymar, Robben, Neuer
25/1 Lahm, James Rodriguez

Billy86

kryogen wrote: »

How come? Don't remember him being under siege too many times and putting in match winning performances for either Bayern or Germany? If you swapped him out for another good goal keeper would it really matter in the grand scheme of things? He may be the best in the world at what he does, ie, be a goalkeeper, but I think Barcelona have long proved that you don't really need a top class goal keeper to be successful.

To be honest, I don't even know for sure that he has been the best keeper in the world this year. He has been phenomenal, but then again so has Courtois.

Too Tough To Die

Billy86 wrote: »

And the CL title, breaking the goalscoring record along the way with 17 goals in 11 games. But the award isn't based on an August - May season, it is based on January - November/December.

Nothing against Suarez who was unbelievable last season, but his form last season up until I believe January of this year doesn't count for this award, and I feel that is where he was slightly better than the second half (during which he was also unbelievable though, to be fair) and while he was far and away the best player on the team it's not like Sturridge, and from around January onward, Sterling were anything short of playing out of their skin alongside him with the midfield also doing very well getting the ball forward. It did also help them that Liverpool had no CL matches to worry about (though a disadvantage to him for the award since its seen as the biggest stage outside the WC - Ronaldo had 7 goals in 6 games in the KO stages last season), and that the Premier League had no real standout team - City won the league with less points than Madrid, Chelsea had a number of hiccups as Mourinho was trying to reestablish/rebuild them and Man Utd had, well, Moyes.

All that said, up until the WC there could be an argument that Suarez was driving Messi and Ronaldo close, but since then Messi has established some distance and Ronaldo has rocketed away altogether. It's a 12 month award and Suarez has missed 3 of then through nobodies fault but his own.

I don't disagree with the main thrust of your argument, just showing the poster the bigger picture.

Dempsey

kryogen wrote: »

How come? Don't remember him being under siege too many times and putting in match winning performances for either Bayern or Germany? If you swapped him out for another good goal keeper would it really matter in the grand scheme of things? He may be the best in the world at what he does, ie, be a goalkeeper, but I think Barcelona have long proved that you don't really need a top class goal keeper to be successful.

His performances going back 2 years have been of a consistently high standard. He was arguably the best player at the World Cup and instrumental in many of Germany's wins. Did you not see the Algeria game? They would have been going home only for him. He covers a huge amount of ground in matches (he covered more ground than Mario Goetze at the WC) sweeping behind the backline and saved his team's bacon on many occasions. Also, his distribution is excellent, rarely squanders possession and sets up alot of attacks for both Bayern & Germany.

Take Your Pants Off

no mention of Kompany?

MD1990

Neuer is not just a keeper either. He plays as a sweeper too.

Corholio

Neuer seems to let in some really stupid goals sometimes. The headed goal from the cross against Poland was really shocking keeping.

He's a very good goalkeeper of course, but a lot of the world cup stuff was him just doing a lot of sweeping, which seemed weird and got notice. He had a good game against Algeria though.

keeponhurling

marbless wrote: »

The bookmakers made him the big favourite, followed by Messi and T. Muller.

[/url]

Has Muller come out of John O'Shea's pocket yet ?

keeponhurling

Not all people voting will be European, and the World Cup is genuinely crucial to winning this.

Which might swing this towards Messi or the German lads

Billy86

Dempsey wrote: »

He covers a huge amount of ground in matches (he covered more ground than Mario Goetze at the WC) sweeping behind the backline and saved his team's bacon on many occasions.

He does cover an awful lot of ground for a keeper alright, but to be fair Gotze isn't really a Muller like workhorse, and he only played I think 269 minutes in Brazil compared to Neuer's 690.

Billy86

keeponhurling wrote: »

Not all people voting will be European, and the World Cup is genuinely crucial to winning this.

Which might swing this towards Messi or the German lads

Not to mention some of the insane votes that come in at times too... I think I remember reading that more than one country voted Casillas #1 last year.

Gbear

Take Your Pants Off wrote: »

no mention of Kompany?

He wasn't great last season.

rottie 11

Surely hazard is a canditate??

CSF

rottie 11 wrote: »

Surely hazard is a canditate??

Why? He hasn't reached anything close to the level Ronaldo has, why would his name get thrown into the discussion? Realistically, we can quote names of players that have been good this year all we want but Ronaldo has been at a whole different level this year, he has set a standard that IMO hasn't been seen before, but some people don't seem to like giving him his due credit.

rottie 11

CSF wrote: »

Why? He hasn't reached anything close to the level Ronaldo has, why would his name get thrown into the discussion? Realistically, we can quote names of players that have been good this year all we want but Ronaldo has been at a whole different level this year, he has set a standard that IMO hasn't been seen before, but some people don't seem to like giving him his due credit.

I never said ronaldo didnt deserve it , BUT di maria , muller etc are being mentioned. I think hazard is a better player than them and he will win it in the next few years

kryogen

Hazard being a better player (which is disputable) has no bearing on whether he has had a better year or not though.