All That Glisters Is Not Gold

They call it the Ballon d’Or. It is awarded to the European Footballer of the Year by the French magazine ‘France Football’ and as far as Thierry Henry is concerned it might as well not exist.

Apparently, the voters are all journalists (that’s a good start) – one from each member country of UEFA, though it is unclear how the ‘one’ is chosen. Each of these ‘experts’ selects five players and ranks them from 1-5, with points according to position. And when all the votes are taken into account, the award is made and the lesser positions are announced.

The first ever winner was the legendary Stanley Matthews 50 years ago, since when only five British players have been honoured and one of them, Kevin Keegan (who was successful twice), was a Hamburg player at the time. The others (Denis Law, Bobby Charlton and George Best) were all with Manchester United.

As for Arsenal, Thierry Henry has to be content with 4 nominations in the top 5 and 6 in the top 10, while even the great Denis Bergkamp has struggled into the top 10 on just four occasions (and two of those were with Ajax and Internationale).

So this year, it seems that being the best player in England, reaching the final of both the Champions League and the World Cup and ranking as one of the most prolific goalscorers in the world, not to mention one of the most elegant providers of ‘assists’, is simply not enough. The award has gone to Fabio Cannavaro, a gritty centre back who very quickly moved from the scandal surrounding Juventus to Real Madrid after lifting the 2006 World Cup as captain of a pragmatic but uninspiring Italian team.

And if you’re looking for an explanation, all you need to know is that in 2005 the runner-up was Frank Lampard. Enough said.