FIFA’s Golden Ball Nominees: No Defensive Players At The World Cup
Her’s FIFA’s Golden Ball nominees list for this World Cup’s best player award, selected by FIFA’s “technical study group”: Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands, David Villa of Spain, Diego Forlan of Uruguay, Asamoah Gyan of Ghana, Andres Iniesta of Spain, Lionel Messi of Argentina, Mesut Oezil of Germany, Arjen Robben of the Netherlands, Bastian Schweinsteiger of Germany and Xavi Hernandez of Spain.
You will notice there is not a defender nor a goalkeeper amongst the ten nominees. The closest we have to a defensive player is the roaming Bastian Schweinsteiger. This does mark a departure from recent Golden Ball awards: a defensive player has finished in the top three of voting in each of the past three World Cups (Favio Cannavaro of Italy in 2006, Oliver Kahn of Germany in 2002 and Lilian Thuram of France in 1998).
No individual defensive player has been hyped-up in the way Cannavaro or Kahn were in the previous two tournaments, while Thuram unusually scored a couple of goals to earn his spotlight.
Perhaps it’s just because the backlines of Spain and the Netherlands, the finalists, haven’t had an obvious outstanding performer, or at least, not one picked up one by the media. Incidentally, FIFA’s shortlist for Young Player of the Tournament is also comprised entirely of attacking players (Thomas Mueller, Giovani Dos Santos and Andre Ayew, for the record).
FIFA’s awards don’t particularly matter, though they do go into record books and have an unmatched prominence. It’d be nice if the nominees reflected some balance between attack and defense (not that Schweinsteiger or Xavi play one way, of course).
The ball has probably done for any chance of a keeper getting on the shortlist.
I think the lack of a defender is due to how well teams have defended collectively, which minimises the chances of a defender showcasing themselves with a series of headers or tackles or blocks. The most visible defenders are the attacking full backs like Maicon and Lahm.
Ironic given the ultra-defensive posture of the vast majority of sides. Etienne makes a good point about collective defensive abilities. I would add that midfielders and even most attacking players now devote a lot of effort to defending. All the teams I watched here in SA had at least nine guys behind the ball, and in some cases all ten. Finally, aside from the attacking backs (who have quite a long history), Puyol’s goal vs Germany reminds me of the renewed importance of central defenders on set plays — a venerable British tradition whose value has been increased by the fact that nearly 40% of goals are scored from moves originating from a set play.
As great of a player as he is, and he is a fabulous one, Messi’s inclusion is an odd one. If I was going to pick one Argentina player it would’ve been Higuain. I guess Gyan is on there because FIFA wanted Africa represented. He was good, but I wouldn’t call him outstanding, two of his goals came from the spot.
Considering they got picked I feel like Honda got hosed. Granted, he didn’t make it as far, but he had a great World Cup.
It would be impossible to pick him, given they went out in the group, but New Zealand’s Paston was good as far as keepers go. He didn’t turn professional until 26 either.
Bobby, Messi’s inclusion is indeed hard to justify on footballing grounds. He was a bit unlucky and certainly worked some magic to create chances, but he took 21 shots and didn’t score a goal — only Villa and Gyan have taken more shots them him so far (according to the Guardian’s stats. One would guess that FIFA’s committee was under pressure to include at least one of the pre-tournament hyped superstars on the list, with Ronaldo and Rooney not exactly options.
Agreed on Honda, and Paston is an interesting suggestion too — we’ll see who FIFA ends up picking for their team of the tournament, though I doubt either will get a look in there either as it’ll mainly be players who appeared in the latter stages, I imagine.
Agreed on Messi (and I’m pretty sure that Leo himself would agree).
Picking up an earlier conversation, I wonder if the list gives us an (unpleasant) foretaste of what the new FIFA-sponsored Ballon d’Or might look like.
I’m biased, but think that Puyol deserves a spot, as does Maicon. I’d drop Xavi for Puyol and Gyan for Maicon.
Same here. I’m biased about this thing. But I need to gather some justification about this issue as well before concluding though.