Best Player in Europe - 2010/2011

UEFA has launched today the 'Best Player in Europe' Award for the best player in a European league during the previous season. The jury for the new award will comprise 53 journalists. The 3 nominees for 2010-11 award will be announced on 25 July, winner on 25 August.


Source: http://www.uefa.com/uefasupercup/news/newsid=1651354.html#uefa+best+player+eu
rope+award+launched

What do u think about this award? Who do u think should be the 3 nominees ?

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The full top ten is:
1 Lionel Messi (ARG) – FC Barcelona (38 votes)
2 Xavi Hernández (ESP) – FC Barcelona (11 votes)
3 Cristiano Ronaldo (POR) – Real Madrid CF (3 votes)

4 Andrés Iniesta (ESP) – FC Barcelona
5 Falcao (COL) – FC Porto*
6 Wayne Rooney (ENG) – Manchester United FC
7 Nemanja Vidić (SRB) – Manchester United FC
8 Zlatan Ibrahimović (SWE) – AC Milan
Gerard Piqué (ESP) – FC Barcelona
10 Manuel Neuer (GER) – FC Schalke 04

http://www.uefa.com/uefa/uefa-best-player-award/news/newsid=1667736.html#messi+wins+uefa+best+player

Messi
Iniesta
Ronaldo

should be the three finalists imo, maybe even Xavi taking Ronaldo's spot

So this award is like the old Balon D'or? with Journalists picking the players. Then i think it is a good idea, it was needed last year where Sneijder would have won according to the old award. So this is a good thing.
I think the three players will be:
in this order
1. Lionel Messi
2. Ronaldo
3. is a really hard one TBH, don't know, Vidic, Xavi or Iniesta probably

I was debating whether to open a thread for this or post a comment and then I saw this thread.

Firstly it seems a political rigmarole that I don't like. Why were the awards merged? At that time it seemed to me to be a good idea that the confusions would be avoided but later when the results came out I wasn't so sure. So why then start the old award in just a slightly different way once again?

Of course there are a few differences. Rather than it being controlled by France Football, it will be controlled by Uefa. The other difference is that it will be given for the season rather than the year. This is one good thing about it probably but let's not be misled. It clearly states that even international performances will be considered. Non-European players will be included. The only restriction is that the player must play for a club in Europe to be eligible.

Considering everything only 2010 had just one award which means that Wesley Sneijder was very hard done. If this award had started last season or the old award hadn't closed, Sneijder would have won it with 99% probability.

Now as for the nominees. Lionel Messi will win it. After the Argentina debacle I think it will not be as much of a landslide victory as I thought earlier but he will still win comfortably. Cristiano Ronaldo will be there, likely second, although personally I am not so sure he deserves that. As for the third nominee as Freeza pointed out it's between Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Nemanja Vidic and I think Samuel Eto'o should also be considered even though his club didn't achieve the results needed since at a personal level he was brilliant. If I had to take a single guess for the third nominee I would say it will be Xavi.

So effectively this is my prediction but note that doesn't mean this is what I think is the right decision.

1. Lionel Messi
2. Cristiano Ronaldo
3. Xavi

The first and 2nd are already taken for good by LM and CR7 respectively. The 3rd spot will be very close though. IMO, age will start to hamper xavi a bit more and last season he was brilliant, but not at his 2009-10 form imho at times.

Iniesta, vidic, eto'o, even ozil have just as much of a chance. I say ozil because his form right now is amazing

Giggity5313 wrote:I say ozil because his form right now is amazing

It's not about form. It's about what happened in the 2010-11 season as a whole.

1. Messi Obviously, scored 12 goals and 3 assists. no problem.
2. CR (4 assists. 6 goal), Eto (8 goals, 5 assists), dani alves (2 goals, 3 assists)
3.iniesta (1 goal 6 assists), ozil(7 assist,1 goal), xavi (2 goals,3 assist)
It should be one player from each position.

The first one should be a no contest.
Messi is by miles the best on the planet.
Xavi should come second and Vidic or CR third.

alexjanosik wrote:The first one should be a no contest.
Messi is by miles the best on the planet.
Xavi should come second and Vidic or CR third.

Xavi? care to elaborate why you think so Alex.

I personally thought both Busquets and Iniesta were better than Xavi this year.

Immaculate_Mole wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:The first one should be a no contest.
Messi is by miles the best on the planet.
Xavi should come second and Vidic or CR third.

Xavi? care to elaborate why you think so Alex.

I personally thought both Busquets and Iniesta were better than Xavi this year.

Busquets I thought was the best midfielder on the planet last season but he wont get nominated so whats the point.
Between Iniesta and Xavi,close but I choose Xavi.
Xavi was not as consistent in the lesser games but he completely and utterly dominated the biggest games.
He effortlessly dominated play in 2 of the greatest displays of all time,the 5-0 against Madrid and the 3-1 against United.
And thats why I place him over Iniesta.
Besides it would be a travesty if the greatest midfielder of all time doesnt even place second in a major individual award.He is just unfortunate to play in the same era as Messi.

alexjanosik wrote:

Immaculate_Mole wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:The first one should be a no contest.
Messi is by miles the best on the planet.
Xavi should come second and Vidic or CR third.

Xavi? care to elaborate why you think so Alex.

I personally thought both Busquets and Iniesta were better than Xavi this year.

Busquets I thought was the best midfielder on the planet last season but he wont get nominated so whats the point.
Between Iniesta and Xavi,close but I choose Xavi.
Xavi was not as consistent in the lesser games but he completely and utterly dominated the biggest games.
He effortlessly dominated play in 2 of the greatest displays of all time,the 5-0 against Madrid and the 3-1 against United.
And thats why I place him over Iniesta.
Besides it would be a travesty if the greatest midfielder of all time doesnt even place second in a major individual award.He is just unfortunate to play in the same era as Messi.

I would probably agree with that, the reason i would choose Iniesta is just that consistency, but you are right about the fact he utterly dominated in the majority of big games.

As for Busquet's you are probably right and he wont get the recognition so yeah its hardly worth discussing.

Xavi didn't have a great season tbh, and he was poor at times in the quartet of clasico's.

Well I say CR deserves 2nd because of the way he carried our team at times.
People point to the 3-1 win over racing when ronaldo wasn't there, but we won like 8-0 when he was there

Well my guesses turned out to be spot on. I think a few others among us such as alex also went for exactly the same selection.

http://www.uefa.com/uefasupercup/news/newsid=1653121.html

Andres Iniesta missed out narrowly just as I had expected. In the last three year awards including this one he has been in the top four each time but only once in the top three ( second last time ). That's more than reasonably good especially for a player who is not that much of a goal scorer and doesn't boast impressive statistics.

Xavi has now made a hattrick of appearances in the top three and it's the fourth time running for the maestro in the top five. Some may feel a little bad that he's never placed higher than third and is unlikely to do so this time as well but I don't think there is that much difference between second and third here. Of course winning is the best but next best is top three. When we consider that other players of his ilk such as Andrea Pirlo and Paul Scholes never made the top three and in fact barely ever made the top five, we realize how huge it is for a non goal-scoring central midfielder to get such kind of commendations.

As for the genius himself Lionel Messi well it's almost sure to be his third year running topping the charts and he's in the top three for the fifth consecutive year.

The exact rankings of the top three have not been released since there will be an on the spot re-poll on the day of the UCL group stage draw. What I like is that they have bothered to announce the voting details for the remaining of the top ten. The rest of the list is given below.

4 Andrés Iniesta (ESP) – FC Barcelona (33 points)
5 Falcao (COL) – FC Porto (17)
6 Wayne Rooney (ENG) – Manchester United FC (15)
7 Nemanja Vidic (SRB) – Manchester United FC (5)
8 Zlatan Ibrahimovic (SWE) – AC Milan (4)
Gerard Piqué (ESP) – FC Barcelona (4)
10 Manuel Neuer (GER) – FC Schalke 04* (3)

One point that pleases me immensely is that in the entire top ten list there are only two midfielders - our dear Xaviesta - head and shoulders above the rest.

I almost forgot to mention that we have four players in the list and the fourth one is a bit of a surprise. BTW the list also has an ex-Barcelona player and it's not the one I expected.

EDIT: sry JD.. didn't see your comment!

So it should be :

1- Messi
2- Cr7
3- Xavi

Khaledbarca wrote:EDIT: sry JD.. didn't see your comment!

So it should be :

1- Messi
2- Cr7
3- Xavi

I think Iniesta should of been there instead of Xavi but meh, i agree with your order.

Khaledbarca wrote:EDIT: sry JD.. didn't see your comment!

Never mind khaled.

Immaculate_Mole wrote:
I think Iniesta should of been there instead of Xavi but meh, i agree with your order.

mole, the matter is a little tricky. If I am completely honest then I would say I think people try to create more controversies about these things than trying to understand how they work - don't mean you though.

Now last year many people were very angry that Iniesta got in even though he didn't have a great season. What I have always tried to explain is that consistency matters less. What counts more is what you can do when it matters most and the biggest moments of the season associated with you. Iniesta had the biggest moment of the year last time and apart from that also stood out right through football's biggest tournament thus helping his country to win the world cup when many other big names fell apart. People so easily forget that Ronaldo won best player in 2002 even though he was out for the whole season.

Now consider this season. We know Xavi was not as consistent as he usually is. We know that he sometimes drifted out of games trying to conserve energy due to his declining stamina and injury problems and allowed Iniesta to run the show. However Xavi stood out in every big match and was very key to everything that happened. Iniesta also did very well in big matches as is his forte and had a few stand out moments but they were not as memorable as the ones he had in 2009 and 2010. Now combine two other points with these arguments. One is that the importance, in terms of the role they play for the team, of Barcelona players in the public and media eye is in the following order - Messi > Xavi > Iniesta > ..... Also Xavi on the whole as a player commands more respect and admiration from the public, media, peers, ex-players and pundits than Iniesta does. When I take all that into account the final ranking makes very good sense to me. That's why I was able to predict it well in advance.

On the same lines Xavi I think will edge out Iniesta for the Uefa Club Best Midfielder as well. However the one that was more difficult to digest was the La Liga awards in which Xavi placed third instead of Iniesta. Now in La Liga Iniesta was definitely more consistent and I think he should have placed third. He also had a good number of goals this season. Still we must remember that most of the voters don't go by match to match analysis but rather on overall impression. Another point that goes in favor of Xavi is that the passing statistics that he comes up with every season literally defy imagination.

Let me end with a really interesting tidbit. Consider the voting for last year's Fifa Ballon D'or. Guess who two of Barcelona's biggest rivals who are also international team captains chose as their top player. I mean none other than Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The answer is Xavi. This itself proves how much they admire the player who probably in their own hearts they believe is the biggest reason why their teams still remain inferior to Barcelona.

Didn't know where else to put this, look at how mad cristiano gets lol!

It will be 1. Messi 2. Ronaldo 3. Xavi, any other order will be surprise for me. No Eto'o in Top 10 is criminal, he is so underrated, he has better season than Rooney and Zlatan 'big game flop' Ibrahimovic.

matpol wrote:No Eto'o in Top 10 is criminal

Yes that's bad. However I don't think it's Eto'o that is underrated. It's his team's season that went against him. He played very well in a season in which his team mates simply did not give him enough support. If you look at the list of nominations they are all at least one of UCL semi finalists or league title winners. Eto'o is neither of these. Actually there are very few non-league title winners in the list - C.Ronaldo for his record breaking La Liga goal scoring exploits resulting in European golden boot and Manuel Neuer who was by consensus considered the best goalkeeper of this season. Still I agree with you and Eto'o would have definitely made my list.

Also I have noticed something specific about voting patterns. In votes conducted among journalists it's the big titles and which players were influential in winning them or coming close that is largely prominent. In votes conducted among captains and coaches it's the players who they admire more and consider the best of their kind that usually pick more votes. Since these two have now been combined in the Fifa Ballon D'or with one third of the importance being given to the media and two third to the captains and coaches, the end result is such a mishmash as we saw last time. This year it's easy because Lionel Messi tops on both criteria.

The full top ten is:
1 Lionel Messi (ARG) – FC Barcelona (38 votes)
2 Xavi Hernández (ESP) – FC Barcelona (11 votes)
3 Cristiano Ronaldo (POR) – Real Madrid CF (3 votes)

4 Andrés Iniesta (ESP) – FC Barcelona
5 Falcao (COL) – FC Porto*
6 Wayne Rooney (ENG) – Manchester United FC
7 Nemanja Vidić (SRB) – Manchester United FC
8 Zlatan Ibrahimović (SWE) – AC Milan
Gerard Piqué (ESP) – FC Barcelona
10 Manuel Neuer (GER) – FC Schalke 04


http://www.uefa.com/uefa/uefa-best-player-award/news/newsid=1667736.html#messi+wins+uefa+best+player

Am I correct in understanding that Cristiano got 2 first place votes?

Whoever did that needs to not be allowed to vote again.

So during the show Puyol showed up like this



Which caused Pique to comment on Twitter about "the elegance of Puyol"

To which Puyol replied "I have been looking at all the suits I have, but I feel best with the one that has the Barca shield by my heart"

LOL Puyol is the boss of all bosses.

Look at that shorts for damn sake lol

His reponse was equally as great.