Loading ...Jul 09 2008
Ronaldo Could Lose Out on Ballon d’Or
The level of anti-Cristiano Ronaldo sentiment should not be underestimated, though if you ever find yourself doing so consider reports out of Italy today saying Iker Casillas and Fernando Torres are favorites for the Ballon d’Or - the most prestigious individual award in the footballing world. Torres certainly had an incredible season, and although I seem to have slightly less regard for Casillas than most, people who know a lot more than I do about the sport have given him tremendous credit for Real Madrid’s success.
Beyond their accomplishments during their club seasons, the capper to their Ballon D’Or resumé seems to be Spain winning Euro 2008. That is where I see the breakdown in logic.
If you grant that Ronaldo was generally considered to be the favorite for the Ballon d’Or at the end of the club season (and if you don’t, you can stop reading now) you have to ask if the performances of Fernando Torres or Iker Casillas in Euro were sufficient to bridge the gap between them and Ronaldo. For now, let’s just set aside the idea of defining what that gap was, and let’s also grant the Ronaldo’s one goal in three games performance for Portugal in the tournament did nothing to lengthen that gap.
Torres, until he scored the winning goal in the final, was generally derided for having a disappointing tournament, a view I completely disagree with (I named him to my best XI for the tournament). He was being substituted in each match, and while some questioned whether that was wise of Luis Aragones, some also advocated giving Daniel Guiza, Torres’s replacement, a greater role. While Torres may have decreased the distance between him and Ronaldo, this is not the resumé of a Ballon d’Or winner.
Then there is Casillas, who I also named to my Euro 2008 XI. Casillas’s shining moment was the penalty shootout win over Italy, but beyond that he was untested. The ten players Spain had in front of him made it a rather boring tournament for Spain’s captain, the pre-kicks Italy match included. Was that performance against Italy enough to bridge his gap from Ronaldo?
Whether you think Torres or Casillas deserve the award, you should allow that the shift in opinion that has happened over the last two months may be more about Ronaldo than either of these players who might win the award. Perhaps people have grown weary of the Real Madrid speculation. That’s understandable. Perhaps the voters look unfavorably on his style and the various eccentricities of his game. That is also understandable, but it is not fair to use these things as reason to change your view of Ronaldo’s performances. Ronaldo, being the front-runner for this award for so long, has been analyzed and scrutinized in a way Torres and Casillas have been able to avoid, and to withhold a vote for him because of that scrutiny can not be fair unless you wait six months to cast a vote and during that time hold Torres and Casillas to the same standards.
That basic unfairness is not the only problem I have with the Casillas and Torres candidacies. How did these two players get singled out to be the probables to benefit from Ronaldo’s star falling? It’s an easy question to answer. They are the players from the Spain team who best fit the standards for this award. Still, that Spain squad was defined by team-wide success that does not lend itself to this kind of individual award. How can you single out Torres or Casillas as being individual beneficiaries from the team’s performance when you see how Marcos Senna, Sergio Ramos, David Villa, Carles Puyol, and David Silva played?
What’s more, why is this being restricted to only Spanish players? If we are going to reconsider Ronaldo’s claim to the award, we should not let the achievement of a Spain side ill-suited towards individual recognition limit the candidates. When you compare Casillas’s resume to that of Edwin van der Sar, who looks better? Both won their club league, and although Casillas’s health during the season is a point in his favor (van der Sar missed time during Manchester United’s season with injuries), van der Sar had a much harder time of it in the Champions League than Casillas had in Euro 2008. Until the Netherlands was eliminated from Euro, van der Sar had outplayed Casillas and been one of the best goaltenders in the tournament.
And why isn’t Michael Ballack being considered? He was Chelsea’s best player, as well as Germany’s, and was a decisive force whenever he was on the pitch.
Van der Sar. Ballack. Casillas or Torres. It doesn’t matter. If what the stories linked below say is true, this award has become less about who will win it than making sure Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t win.
I hope after the award is given, this write-up looks reactionary; however, I doubt I would have bothered if I didn’t feel that this scenario was possible.
Links
Cristiano Ronaldo Could Miss Out on Ballon d’Or (edited for American Soccer Reader)
Italian Press: Casillas & Torres Favorites For Ballon D’Or
Reports: Casillas, Torres favorites for Ballon d’Or
WFP Related Posts
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