I think Messi deserved it hands down. Xavi a pretty distant second, and I don't think there was anyone really outstanding for 3rd place. Certainly not Iniesta, shouldn't have been in the top 10 in my view, and despite his team's success, certainly not Sneijder. Who I think is incredibly overrated.

Sneijder would have won it under the old system (Messi would have placed 4th). Historically the award has gone to the player with the outstanding achievement (Sneijder's treble and WC final appearance made him a worthy winner), not the outstanding player. Different voters provide a different criteria now.

I think the change is for the better. Messi is twice the player Sneijder is and should be awarded as such. It's not a great idea to judge people's individual achievements on the amount of trophies won in a team sport. In fact, I was happy to see Messi win it. It makes it somewhat possible to take the prize seriously. I agree with ricky too - Iniesta shouldn't have been anywhere near it. It's beyond me how he makes twenty starts each season and still manages to be up there when they're putting together these lists.

Klaus, it comes back to tihs recall issue. The guy scored the biggest goal last year, and that was always going to be enough with the FIFA awards. I remember feeling gutted for Henry when he missed that lob against Barca in Paris because that probably would've been enough to make him a serious contender that year for Ballon d'Or.

Think Ronaldo at 2002 world cup. The guy misses the entire season, turns up for 4 weeks, is sensational. Ballon d'Or. Thank you.

Right, but it sounds like you agree with my line of reasoning here. How come you'd like too see Sneijder get the prize instead of Messi then? Because there hasn't been a player in the world who's been even close to that mulleted midget for years now. It's a bit boring to see him rake home another award I guess, but I like the fact that it actually went to the best player instead of the most decorated one. If that had been the norm then Henry would have won it at least twice during his Arsenal career and might have rightfully gone down in history as one of the all-time greats. Instead he'll be remembered outside of Arsenal as one of ten or twelve very good players who defined the 00s. Which by all means isn't something to spit on. But in my opinion he was more than that.

So, Klaus, my preference would have been Xavi for his consistency and success in running both the Spain and Barcelona offenses. He has been brilliant with his organization and distribution, and deserved recognition as the mastermind behind the two best teams in the club and national game.

Failing that, I would have gone for Sneijder. He really made that Inter team tick. Technically, he is one of the finest players in the game, and every play on Europe's most successful team seemed to run through him.

I like the combination of success and influence in that success. It's hard to put a weighting on the two categories, but I like the idea of rewarding winners, but particularly men who played a big role in the success.

I think they tend to do that in the NBA. The regular season MVP title is not given to necessarily the best player in the league, but the man who had the most impact in making his team a contender. It's possible and sensible to do that in a team sport

Maybe. The most sensible thing would be to hand out eleven awards though; one for the best player on each position (and even then it would be hard to accurately compare players because differing formations call for differing roles). I mean, you can't really compare Messi to a centreback or a goalkeeper anyway. You can compare their superiority to other players in the same position but how do you distinguish Messi from, say, Iker Casillas? Paolo Maldini from Robert Pires? Fernando Redondo from Dennis Bergkamp?

I tend to pay very little attention to individual football awards for that reason. But I do take a bit of comfort in the fact that at least it was someone who was undisputedly best at what he did last year that took home the award, rather than Sneijder or Iniesta who weren't even among the top five players on their respective position.

I'd beg to differ on Sneijder, who I thought was fantastic.

I'd strongly agree on Iniesta, who did not have a season to write home about. We might as well reward Fabreags for the beautiful throughball he gave Iniesta in the WC final.

I'd agree with Messi if the criteria is simply the absolute best player on the planet who kicked a ball that year.

You make it sound like Messi did little individually, Zico.

He scored more goals than Sneijder, assisted more goals than Sneijder, did more amazing things than Sneijder - like hitting hattricks every other week, scoring stupendous goals of literally unrivalled quality, or scoring 4 goals in the quarter-final of the Champions League.

He was the best player in the world last year, and for my money, by some distance, too.

Couldn't agree more.

When you lot watch Barcelona play aren't you nearly always just as impressed by Xavi as Messi? I know I am.

No. Xavi is great, truly the best midfielder in the world, but Messi is the razor sharp tip at the end of the sword. The player that makes all the play that precedes him getting the ball something more than just passing the ball around. Take him away from that Barcelona side and you practically kill it dead - and when they have players of the quality of David Villa, Pedro, Iniesta - that's testament to Messi's astonishing ability.

You could put him in any side that had a good foundation and he would transform them into something special, Xavi, as good as he is, can't do that.

Some of the things that Xavi has done in recent memory, we will not see repeated by another central midfielder, such as the record number of passes he set for midfielder at the world; his typically high pass completion rate which is a large part of why the Barca machine is able to keep possession and is so effective on attack.

In the end, Mess is a fantastic player and I it does not keep me awake at night that he won the award. If anybody should know how amazing he is, it's the Arsenal family. :-)

Ricky1985 wrote:

No. Xavi is great, truly the best midfielder in the world, but Messi is the razor sharp tip at the end of the sword. The player that makes all the play that precedes him getting the ball something more than just passing the ball around. Take him away from that Barcelona side and you practically kill it dead - and when they have players of the quality of David Villa, Pedro, Iniesta - that's testament to Messi's astonishing ability.

You could put him in any side that had a good foundation and he would transform them into something special, Xavi, as good as he is, can't do that.

You write top quality posts. You write very well too. I've been meaning to say that for a while.

But you exaggerate a lot.

Without Messi Barca are obviously not as good but practically killed? Come on now. Barca are widely regarded as the best TEAM in the world. In football that means the best set of 11 players. You can't say that they are a one man team. If you look at the fulcrum of the Spanish side then you see that they are barca players; two top defenders, a solid midfield and an excellent attack. Xavi was the best player in euro 2008 and a key player in 2010 for Spain. He picks out the passes and dictates games in a way no other player in the world does imo. In 2009 Alex Ferguson, after seeing his team played off the park by Barca in the CL final, said that Xavi (and Iniesta) was the best player in the world. They couldn't get the ball of him. He specifically said Messi wasn't the problem that night. Rooney spoke to the media saying the same thing, that Xavi along with Iniesta were the best players in the world. I remember seeing that on ITV. This is all fact. Given that they are and still are spoken of so highly it's weird to say that without Messi you kill Barca practically dead.

Now obviously it's clear Messi is the best player in the world and probably was then but to say that Xavi is truly the best midfielder in the world and then say you almost kill Barca without a colleague of his doesn't make sense. It's still a great TEAM.

I do exaggerate quite alot to make my point, I've noticed that, I often use quite alot of emotive language too, not sure why? It's not a conscious thing, I must just feel strongly about what I'm saying.

I've worded what I said badly, taking Messi out of Barcelona wouldn't turn them into Wolves, but I do really believe it would take away such a big part of what they are. He's just extraordinary, I mean he scored 47 goals last season in all competitions. I really do believe Xavi is great, incidentally I don't think Iniesta is in his class, but Xavi is limited. He's just an incredibly efficient footballer, who plays the right pass, at the right time, nearly every time. Obviously that's extremely important to the proper functioning of the team, but on it's own it doesn't achieve very much. 95% of what he does involves playing a very simple pass and then moving into space to receive the ball again - Denilson-like in fact, the other 5% of the time the right pass is an incisive pass and he invariably knows when to play it and plays it well.

Would Messi look the same player without Xavi finding him early with perfect passes? Would Xavi look the same player without Messi, or other absolutely world class forwards, to do something extraordinary with his perfect passes?

If you swapped Fabregas for Xavi, would the quality of our team dramatically increase? Would he make our forwards play significantly better? Would the quality of Barcelona's play drop significantly? Would Messi score significantly less goals, or the other forwards?

What about if you swapped Nasri for Messi, would the quality of our team dramatically increase? Would he make the midfielders look better because of what he does with their passes? Would the quality of Barcelona's play drop significantly?

I know what my answers would be, but they are genuine questions. I love to watch Xavi, he's perhaps the best midfielder I've seen in my time, but like I said above, he is a limited player. He is 5'6", pretty weak, and pretty slow, but at Barcelona that doesn't matter. The game he plays suits their game perfectly, and his weaknesses and limitations aren't exposed because he is never asked to do the things he isn't good at. Put Xavi in Wolves' team tomorrow and do yo think his strengths would suit their game, make them a better team? Or do you think his weaknesses would be badly exposed and weaken the team?

Messi on the other hand is perhaps the most complete forward I've seen. For me, he is an asset to any team, anywhere, whatever the style, whatever the League. So I agree Barcelona are a great team with great players, but Messi is so good that he takes them up another level.

Ricky1985 wrote:

I do exaggerate quite a lot to make my point,.

Thats all right Rick I swear a lot to make mine.

The obvious retort to that Ricky, is that Xavi has been brilliant for Spain whereas Messi has generally been quite subdued for Argentina (and not just under Maradona's management either).

Anyway, I cant say that I watch Barcelona play week-in week-out, but I've seen most of their big games over the last 12 months or so--2 El Classico's, both legs of our CL qf last season etc--and Xavi has been the best player on the pitch in pretty much every single one of them, despite Messi's goals and brilliance.

Putting Xavi at Wolves, or most teams in the Prem wouldn't help because a lot of them don't even like to play football.

But to answer your question Ricky, put Xavi in any side that gets the ball down and plays and he'll increase them tenfold. That includes us. Fabregas is good, but he's not as good as Xavi. Yet.

Messi is obviously the best player in the world hands down, but Xavi is in the top 3 too. Taking him out of the Barcelona team would hurt them just as much as Messi.

Biggus wrote:

Ricky1985 wrote:

I do exaggerate quite a lot to make my point,.

Thats all right Rick I swear a lot to make mine.

Not really actually.

You hammer home your point over time.