Ronaldo poised for a sweep

Take these annual awards with a truckload of salt

Barring divine intervention or a visit from Florida election officials, Ronaldo will sweep the game's three most prestigious awards.

He has already been named World Soccer's Player of the Year and, next week, he appears certain to win France Football's Ballon d'Or and FIFA's Player of the Year accolades as well.

These awards look good in anybody's trophy cabinet. However, they are also nothing more than popularity contests based on television appearances.

True, if Ronaldo completes the sweep, it will mean he has gotten the nod from just about everybody in the sport's community. World Soccer's award is voted on by fans (albeit readers of the magazine, which logically skews the results somewhat), France Football's by journalists (the magazine's own correspondents in each of UEFA's member nations) and FIFA's by coaches (the national team coach of each FIFA member).

Of course, when you look a little closer you find an obvious European bias to the first two awards. Most World Soccer readers are not only English-speakers (why else would they buy the magazine if they didn't speak the language?), they hail from Europe as well. As for France Football's award, it is limited to votes from European countries.

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FIFA's accolade is more global, though again, one needs to read between the lines to figure out that there is a huge variance in the knowledge and experience of the 140-odd coaches who cast their vote for the award.

Without knocking anyone, it's pretty obvious that a guy like Luiz Felipe Scolari, former coach of Brazil, or Germany's Rudi Voeller, will not only have seen more of the top players live than the coach of the Solomon Islands or Angola, he will also be better versed in the game itself.

Most of the coaches for these smaller nations aren't actually from there. A disproportionate number are of British, French or Brazilian extraction. Nothing wrong with that, except that generally they are people who could not cut it in the game back home.

Because of where they live and work, their access to top soccer is limited. At best, they'll catch the odd match on television; usually it's the World Cup or the Champions League, or if they're lucky they might get to watch some Premiershp, Liga or Serie A matches.

And yet, these guys are the ones who dish out the awards. Which might explain why last season the FIFA coaches served up more than a few goofy choices.

Malawi's Kim Splidsboel chose his countryman Ebbe Sand as runner-up, Tajikistan's Gafupov Saldkhidin picked Iranian Ali Daei as his No. 3, while Charlie Cook, of Turks and Caicos, genuinely felt that Henrik Larsson was the best player in the world last season. Iceland's Attli Edvaldsson got even more surreal, opting for Stefan Effenberg who was injured much of the year.

Everybody's entitled to their opinion, but things get dubious when great coaches make bizarre choices. Miroslav Blazevic, in charge of Iran, picked his old buddy Alen Boksic, as the world's No. 1 last year, while the late Valeryi Loanovksi gave his third place vote to Carlos Alberto. Now, unless there is another Carlos Alberto I don't know about it, that's the same Carlos Alberto who retired from the game more than 25 years ago...

The point is that we should take these awards with a truckload of salt. They don't reflect the best player in the world over the previous 12 months. At best they reflect who did well in televised matches.

Which is very much the case with Ronaldo. He played a handful of matches with Inter, a handful of matches with Real Madrid and dominated the World Cup with Brazil. He started fewer than 30 games all year, but most of those were seen around the world, and that's what grabs people's attention. Never mind the fact that, owing to his injuries, he was a part-time player for much of the year.

Beyond that, there is an obvious bias against defenders and goalkeepers, but that is, perhaps, understandable. After all, they rarely make headlines or three-minute TV highlight packages, and that's what many base their votes on.

Only one defender, Paolo Maldini in 1994, has ever won World Soccer's Award in its 20-year history. No defender or goalkeeper has ever won FIFA's bauble, which has been running since 1991, though Maldini and Roberto Carlos both were runners-up. France Football's Ballon d'Or -- the oldest award, dating back to 1956 -- has picked a defender on three occasions: Franz Beckenbauer (twice) and Matthias Sammer. The only goalkeeper to win it was Lev Yashin in 1963.

Ultimately, it's a popularity contest that falls prey to the voters' whims. Since 1995, when the Ballon d'Or became open to non-Europeans, only three times has a player taken all three awards: Ronaldo in 1997, Zinedine Zidane in 1998 and Rivaldo in 1999.

Last year's Ballon d'Or winner, Michael Owen, only finished eighth in the FIFA award.

Is it so difficult to agree on greatness?

Yes, but it is even more difficult when those called upon to agree base themselves on popularity, hype and what they see on television.

For my money, there is no clear-cut winner this year. Zidane would have a strong case, except for France's poor showing in the World Cup, though, to be fair, he was struggling with injuries. Oliver Kahn? Apart from the World Cup, 2002 wasn't his best season, though he'd be a worthy winner.

But the guy who would get my vote is Roberto Carlos: quietly consistent for much of the year and with plenty of silverware. Don't worry though -- he won't win.

GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK

Good Week: The African Champions League, which has grown immensely in quality and popularity, showed all the hallmarks of a first-class competition in the first leg of the final between Zamalek and Raja Casablanca. Crowds are up, television is helping spread regular, top-notch African soccer throughout the continent, and it's a shame we won't see this year's winner take on top sides in Europe and South America.

Bad Week: Premiership managers, rocked by accusations of kickbacks, nepotism and dubious dealings. The very structure of the English game -- where managers both coach the team and conduct transfer activities -- lends itself to impropriety, and it's an open secret that kickbacks -- or "bungs" as the English call them -- are rife throughout the game. Throw in the fact that a number of top managers and club chairmen have sons who just happen to be agents, and what emerges is a situation that reeks of impropriety.

Good Week: Austria and Switzerland, which were named as co-hosts for Euro 2008, beating out rival bids from Scotland/Ireland, the Nordic nations (Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway), Russia, Greece/Turkey, Hungary and Bosnia/Croatia. Hard to get excited by the venues (which tend to be small and antiseptic), but at least they're centrally located. The fact that UEFA and FIFA are both located in Switzerland was certainly just a coincidence.

Bad Week: Roma boss Fabio Capello, whose team lost to Milan over the weekend and then fell to Ajax in the Champions League. Capello's tough-guy approach has yielded tremendous success in the past, but now his prickly personality is doing him no favors. He has been at loggerheads with a number of high-profile players and morale is at its lowest point since he took over.

Gabriele Marcotti covers international soccer for CNNSI.com.

 

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