Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

[anton pulisov]

Messi
Ronaldo
Neymar

What a pity that the Uruguay national team isn't sponsored by Nike or Adidas.

[EIM]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

Suarez is the clear favourite for the Bellen d'or.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

I'm not sure that the Uruguay national team kit manufacturer has much to do with it.

[Kevin S]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

EIM wrote: Suarez is the clear favourite for the Bellen d'or.

[dalliance]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

Ronaldo is going to be to the Balon D'Or what Annie Lennox was to Best Female Artist at The Brits - mysteriously nominated without fail every year despite doing nothing of any note over the preceeding 12 months.

[matt j]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

I was just thinking that this may be the last year we see Ronaldo in the short list. But then what? Just the new Barcelona trio for a while?

[Borracho]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

dalliance wrote: Ronaldo is going to be to the Balon D'Or what Annie Lennox was to Best Female Artist at The Brits - mysteriously nominated without fail every year despite doing nothing of any note over the preceeding 12 months.

In fairness to the man, he did score 61 goals for Real Madrid last season, which is none too shabby.

[dalliance]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

What's the qualifying period though? He was excellent in the Autumn of 2014 but his form fell away drastically after the turn of the year and hasn't really recovered this season.

He still scores plenty of goals, sure, by having morphed into an out-and-out poacher who does even less for the team around him than he used to.

[Borracho]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

He has 45 goals this calendar year. Even allowing for the fact that the Spanish league has its . . . ahem . . . issues, that's still an astonishing number.

He still scores plenty of goals, sure, by having morphed into an out-and-out poacher who does even less for the team around him than he used to.

He's been like that for at least the last four years.

I'm not saying he's currently the greatest player in the world or anything, but even when off-colour he's still better than 99.9% of others.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

"Ballon"

[garcia]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

he's not better than suarez, who won a treble and scored 40 goals in 2015, including the winner in the champions league final. the partnership of suarez, messi and neymar has outscored every club in europe in 2015, except bayern munich who've also scored 125. it's obvious who should be on the podium and being there in third place will only make ronaldo feel fraudulent as well as a failure.

[Satchmo Distel]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

I think Ronaldo is better than Neymar, even on 2015 form. Iniesta is also better than Neymar, albeit one is comparing apples and oranges.

Lewandowski is unfortunate to miss out.

[dalliance]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

Ronaldo has absolutely not been the same player he currently is for 4 years now. Look at the goals he was scoring when Madrid won the CL for instance: getting the ball on the left and destroying opponents for pace or taking them one way then the other before finishing deftly.

This year he has lost all his ability to actually get past players with his pace dropping off quite sharply. He's still good at getting on the end of stuff and providing the final touch to other people's build up, but he can create nothing distinct for himself these days.

And when you are a loitering centre forward playing for a team like Real Madrid that creates a lot of chances, so you should score a lot of goals - especially when they entire team is set up to play for you like no other big team in Europe.

God help the coach who dares take him off taking free-kick duties for example despite that record of him having scored once from his past 58 attempts.

So sure, even as an Inzaghi type finisher he's superior to most players and he'd still be high up in any list of Europe's best players. But one of the top three? No chance unless the nature of the award is meant to take into account a player's worldwide marketing appeal as well as his actual playing worth.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

Ronaldo's going to sign for Man United in January. That says all you need to know about any claims of his to be the world's best player.

[EIM]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

"Ronaldo's going to sign for Man United in January."

No he isn't.

[Borracho]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

including the winner in the champions league final.

Into an open goal.

[ingoldale]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

The Ballon D'Or has become shit since France Football relinquished control to FIFA. A real shame.

[Borracho]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

ingoldale wrote: The Ballon D'Or has become shit since France Football relinquished control to FIFA. A real shame.

What a fucking bore it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_Ballon_d%27Or#Winners

It's as if the Oscars were only ever won by films involving Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Michael Bay.

[Outside Agent]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

dalliance wrote: Ronaldo is going to be to the Balon D'Or what Annie Lennox was to Best Female Artist at The Brits - mysteriously nominated without fail every year despite doing nothing of any note over the preceeding 12 months.

I can't let this comment pass.

Annie Lennox won her 1993 Brit for Best Female on the back of her excellent album Diva. It was thoroughly deserved.

[Outside Agent]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

Oh, and Suarez should be this year's winner.

And while we're grumbling about global profile trumping contribution on the field, Wesley Sneijder should have won it in 2010.

[Incandenza]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

The ceremony is live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylt1uu41Q64

The intro just had two cellists playing AC/DC's "Thunderstruck". One guy got up and laid down to play in the machine generated fog:

[Incandenza]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

The host just (jokingly) asked Ronaldo when he's going back to Manchester United and then said it again after Ronaldo said his platitudes about hard work and determination.

[Incandenza]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

Fifpro World XI: Neuer, Marcelo, Silva, Ramos, Alves, Iniesta, Modric, Pogba, Neymar, Messi, Ronaldo

[Tony C]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

Lionel Messi wins the Balon d'or.

In other news the sun went down earlier, but is due to rise tomorrow morning.

[Borracho]

Balon d'or 2015 shortlist

Incandenza wrote: Marcelo, Silva, Ramos, Alves

It's about time we all stopped paying attention to this dismal load of bollocks.