Ballon D’Or Goes To Messi… wait, what?!

January 10th, 2011 | by: Ade C. | Comments Off

The results are in, and Lionel Messi is the winner of the 2010 FIFA Ballon D’Or Award, over Spaniards and World Cup winners Andrés Iniesta and Xavi (with, apparently, 22%, 17% and 16% of the votes, respectively.).

Still, so many Spaniards...

There were SIX (six!) Spanish players in the 2010 Team of the Year: San Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué, Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, and David Villa (alongside with Brazil’s Lucio and Maicon, Netherland’s Sneijder, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Argentina’s Lionel Messi).

Moreover, Our Wise Walrus, Vicente Del Bosque, was a runner-up for Coach of the Year Award. (and hey, Pep Guardiola is also Spanish, so there were really two Spanish candidates for each men’s football award… and still we got neither.)

Sooo… what do you think? Was justice served or not?

For the record, while I admit my bias as a Barça fan and a Messi fangirl, I have to say that while my vote was for Xavi and I would have loved to see him win, I am not disappointed by seeing Messi get the Ballon D’Or. He is a brilliant player, possibly the best of his generation, and team success does not always equal player awards: Messi is as brilliant individually as Spain is collectively, and perhaps we should be satisfied with the World Cup and leave it at that.

Or perhaps not… complain away in the comments, if you want!