FIFA Ballon d'or

As we come to the close of year 5 of the Messi/ Cristiano Ronaldo debate I figured I’d throw in my 2 cents.  Not to try to determine who is better, you can debate that until the cows come home, but more as a reminder of how ridiculously lucky we are to have both of these brilliant players at the height of their abilities at the same time.  And I don’t mean brilliant in the British way as in “wow, that gravy is brilliant”, I mean brilliant as in, they are doing things that I have not seen before and will only see again in half-as-good copy cat ways.

The Ballon d’or is very rarely a contest.  The very fact that it is decided upon by journalists makes it suspect to serious questioning, but for the sake of argument let’s forget that.  Instead, let’s look at who has won the award that could be considered as good as these two and then let’s look at their competition that year.  Keep in mind a couple of things:  1.The Ballon d’or used to be only available to players playing in Europe, since 2010 it’s been combined with a FIFA award so it can now go to anyone playing anywhere in the world.  2.  The award almost never goes to a defensive player much less a goal keeper.  Lev Yashin is the only keeper to ever bring the award home.  3.  If you are the best offensive player on the team that wins the European cup/Champions league, you are a shoe in regardless of what other players may have accomplished.

If you don't know about Lev Yashin you seriously need to look him up.

Of the players who have won the award since the inception of the Champions League I would consider Ronaldinho, Zidane, Ronaldo, and Van Basten at the same level as Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Let’s start with Marco Van Basten, one of the few players to ever win this award three times and, many would argue, if it hadn’t been for injury one of the best players to ever play the game.  In 1992 he led Milan to their first Serie A title in four years which would allow them to qualify for the Champions League (remember when only champions got to participate in it?).  He then fought an ankle injury for 2 years but ended up retiring when he couldn’t overcome it.

His main competition in 1992 was Hristo Stoichkov the Bulgarian who would eventually win the trophy in 1994.  But Stoichkov had good seasons here and there, not a sustained career where he was always good like Van Basten.  He also had the misfortune of playing for Bulgaria so his national career would never leave the ground.

Other notable players that year:  Dennis Bergkamp, also from the Netherlands, Tomas Hassler, Peter Schmeichel and the Laudrup brothers.  All of these players are fantastic, but not as good as Van Basten, Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.

Next on the list is Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima, otherwise known as the fat Ronaldo.  His story is fairly similar to Van Basten’s in that he dominated when he was young but his memory will be tarnished by debilitating injuries.  From 1994-96 he ripped up the Eredivisie and suffered his first bad injury (half of a season), he was then bought by Barcelona and had one of those seasons (1996-97) that you should tell your grandkids about.  He then moved to Inter Milan where he spent one and a half years making defenders look silly and about three years injured.  During this spell he won the Ballon d’or (1997) and came in second by a single point in 1996, losing to Matthias Sammer who had the benefit of playing for Germany who had won the 1996 Euro.

You remember Matthias Sammer right...right.

Zinedine Zidane won the award in 1998 while playing with Juventus.  As a midfielder he scored remarkably few goals but had technical ability that few people can match.  He was aided by France winning the World Cup in 1998 but never pleased the journalists enough to win it again.

After recovering from his injury (and winning the world cup for Brazil) Ronaldo moved to Real Madrid where he would team up with Ballon d’or rivals Roberto Carlos and Zidane.  The most interesting part of his career in the Ballon d’or is how he and Zidane only had one season where they both could have won it.  In 2002 Ronaldo led Brazil to World Cup glory and then had a remarkable season for Madrid so he won the award, Zidane also had a remarkable season for Madrid but was injured for most of the World Cup which prevented him from getting votes he otherwise would have.  Again, one of the few situations where there was a legitimate competition between two great players.

His hair had nothing to do the winning.

Ronaldinho simply had no peers during a two year stint at the top during 2005 and 2006.  His ball control was almost unparalleled during this time and he was able to use it to take over games and show us things not seen before.  Unfortunately no one else could really compete with him during this time.  Thierry Henry and Andriy Shevchenko are the two players that got closest to him during that time but neither of them will be spoken of in the same breath as the other greats that we’re talking about here.

So I guess that’s my point here.  Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are amazing players, better than Stoichkov, better than Kaka, better than Deco, Baggio, Sammer or Figo.  And they’ve both been doing it for five years now.  They rarely get injured, are always battling for trophies and each have their staunch defenders who stand up and say they’re the best.

What might be the strangest part is that they could still do this for another 3-4 years barring injury.  Cristiano Ronaldo is 27, Messi 25 and to tell you the truth I don’t see another up and coming player of their caliber.

Do you?