Bubbles from Boffinland

Are you ready for some real excitement? The shortlist has been announced for the FIFA World Player of the Year Award and with 30 names altogether it isn’t all that short – but the good news is that those terrific FIFA boffins have excelled themselves once again.

Naturally, the team with the most candidates is Chelsea, their six nominees comfortably eclipsing the likes of Champions League winners Barcelona with four and runners up Arsenal with three. And when you look at the individuals it’s difficult to argue with that. Heading up the Chelsea list is of course that old FIFA favourite Frank Lampard (master of the square pass and clearly a man at the very top of his game), closely followed by the goalscoring machine Andriy Shevchenko and then Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, Michael Ballack and Michael Essien. It’s difficult to imagine how Barcelona’s Eto’o, Ronaldinho, Deco and Thuram, or Arsenal’s Henry, Lehmann and Rosicky could possibly compare with that lot?

Apart from the Chelsea six and Arsenal’s three, the Premiership is also represented by two Manchester United players (Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo) and one Liverpool player (Steven Gerrard). No doubt Sir Alex Ferguson and Raffa Benitez will be less than delighted with that, just as Arsene Wenger might be a bit miffed by the absence of Cesc Fabregas from the list – but you can’t really argue with a FIFA boffin.

Can you?