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Ballon dOr 2014: Neuer vs veterans?

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So, this time around, for the World Player of the Year, or 2014 FIFA Ballon d’Or award, as it’s more popularly known as, has a more unlikely name in the list of nominees that FIFA has shortlisted. Germany’s World Cup winning goalkeeper Manuel Neuer is all set to give Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo a run for their money.

Believe it or not, Germany’s goalie Neuer, whose performance during the World Cup was phenomenal, will be up against veterans, as Ronaldo and Messi have won the past 6 player of the year awards between themselves. While Ronaldo has won it twice, once last year and once in 2008, Messi has picked it up four times already. If Neuer happens to beat all the odds and clinch the award, he will become only the second wicketkeeper to do so. Newsmobile takes a closer look at all the three nominees and spells out their chances.

Lionel Messi

This football legend needs no introduction. Argentine stalwart Messi not just captains the national side, but also plays for FC Barcelona, scoring a whopping 253 goals for Barcelona and 47 goals for Argentina in his 93 appearances. He’s played for an unbelievable 22,750 minutes for Barcelona and 7,823 minutes for Argentina. He’s by far the most experienced of the other two nominees. However, what matters is what he did in the past one year. For Barcelona, he scored 10 goals in 13 appearances, whereas for Argentina, he scored 10 goals as well, in 14 matches. 2014 was a relatively eventful year for Messi, with the FIFA World Cup keeping him fully busy, both as a player and as a skipper. In July, he was among the 10 players shortlisted by the FIFA technical committee for FIFA’s Golden Ball award for the tournament’s best player, which he eventually won. He was the joint-third-highest goalscorer of the tournament, with four goals and an assist and also his beautiful goals against Nigeria and Bosnia and Herzegovina were were voted the ninth and eighth best goals of the tournament. In fact, his four Man of the Match awards were the most of any player in the tournament.

Cristiano Ronaldo

This 1985-born Portuguese superstar has been there and done that. Skipper of the Portuguese national team and forward of the Spanish team Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo is actually the defending champion this time around. So, the dude has a lot at stake. Playing for Real Madrid and previously Manchester United too, Ronaldo has spent 29,614 minutes on field, with 281 goals in 373 appearances. In 2014 alone, he scored 20 goals from his 12 appearances. For Portugal, he has spent a total of 9112 minutes on field, scoring 52 goals from 118 appearances. This year, he scored 2 goals from 2 appearances. This year has been a blessed one for him. It started with the  2013–14 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award and followed it up by  becoming the all-time top scorer in the UEFA European Championship (including qualifying) with 23 goals in November last year. With his two goals, Ronaldo tied second in the list of top scorers in European club competitions with 70 goals. Ronaldo also equalled Lionel Messi’s record of hat-tricks away from home with seven hat-tricks.

Manuel Neuer

‘Sweeper Keeper’ Manuel Neuer has been in raging form all through this year. As a goalie, he plays for Bayern Munich and the German national side, which also happened to win the 2014 FIFA World Cup earlier this year. In his 265 appearances in club football, he has spent 23,762 minutes on field, while for Germany, he’s spent 5100 minutes in his 57 appearances. After keeping clean sheets in group matches against Portugal and the US, Neuer recorded his third clean sheet of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in the 1–0 quarter-final defeat of France.  Neuer personally won the Golden Glove award for the tournament’s best goalkeeper.

Overall, it just about looks like Ronaldo will have a slight edge over Messi this time around, given his performance in this season. However, because it isn’t too many times that a goalie gets nominated, Neuer might just emerge as the underdog and walk away with the cake!

 

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