Based on what several players (some of whom are eligible to vote) have said in the past few months and weeks, Messi is still the undoubted king. Zlatan for example said Ribery only shines thanks to team performance. Ronaldo had like 2-3 advocates (Madridistas) while the only one pleading for Ribery was Nasri. Let Messi score 1-2 golazos in the next CL games and he's totally ahead of everyone.
Messi should still win it tbh. Ribery had a good year but there was no standout player in general. You can't really say ribery deserves it because it really was a team effort from Bayern. Robben, Schweini, Muller should be equally considered if they are going to reward Bayern.
They will all be considered, just as some Dortmund players like Lewandowski. I guess the top 10 will be made of Bayern and Dortmund players, Ronaldo, Messi and perhaps Neymar (given his good place last year although achieving relatively little compared to this year). I see a top 3 of Messi, Ronaldo and either Ribery or Schweinsteiger (I don't think he'll be far behind in votes). Given CR's CL form, I doubt he has to fear his second place.
Chainsaw
Killahead
Like it or not I think Ribery has a fair chance of winning it this time for what he has achieved with Bayern last season.
Luftstalag14
Culé de Celestial Empire
Why? CR7's first half was scheisse, but he did have a decent second half, two chances denied, plus the assist to Jese.
I am increasingly feeling nervous about Messi's chances though. Personal stats wise, CR7 is ahead of him; titles-wise Ribery is ahead of him.
Luftstalag14
Culé de Celestial Empire
That's not indicative enough though. The very reason Ribery was chosen over Messi at the uefa beast player award by so many European media outlets (interestingly, all British media reps voted for Messi) has to be considered. One must not underestimate this huge Bayern hype Ribery is riding.
No, the UEFA award results are completely deceiving, as I've explained before. You had TWO rounds of voting, the players with the best voting results were then shortlisted. After that ANOTHER round of voting occured, namely the live voting, where the previous results were left out of consideration. That means that the "huge" advantage Ribery had to the other two candidates came from votes that were previously not his: All the votes that Schweini, Lahm, Müller etc got didn't count and went to Ribery in the final, decisive round. You see? That is not the case in the Ballon Dor, where there is only ONE round and the voters do not have the chance to pick one out of the final three. Whoever gets the most points from a 23 man shortlist wins. This means that Ribery will get much less votes from the journalists than before, because the votes for Schweinsteiger and the other Bayern players won't go to him...
So the Bayern hype will in the end get him and not be to his advantage. The UEFA award was like this: "Well I want a Bayern player to get it, so I pick Schweinsteiger, Lahm and Messi because he's Messi. Oh, Schweinsteiger and Lahm are no longer votable in the second round? Might as well take Ribery then." And if the previous years are anything to go by, Messi will be included in EVERYONE's votes except for maybe Löw's, Casillas' and the French voters, meaning that Messi will get a huge amount of points from 2nd and 3rd place votes, whereas Ribery will not necessarily be included everywhere, because some people rate Lahm, Müller etc better than him and some don't give a damn about trophies.
This is why the UEFA award doesn't say anything.
Edit: It also might be interesting to know that in the first round of voting for the UEFA award, Messi had the most votes (relatively speaking). Had it not been for the live voting, he'd have won.
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Corruption
Member
BS on the fritz again so here's the first image
What a crybaby
Luftstalag14
Culé de Celestial Empire
Thanks again suckabov for taking the time to explain.
However though, just a thought, wouldn't it be possible that those "Bayern sympathizes"
), just to get back at them for coining the term "BVB sympathizes") in the media and the various NTs know very well that by naming any other Bayern player other than Ribery will be detrimental to Ribery's chances of winning, therefore they will all just pick Ribery instead? I mean, let's say even though I would have preferred Schweinsteiger and Robben, but I know they don't stand a chance; and by voting for these two I am diluting Ribery's votes, so in the end I decide to vote for Ribery because I just want a Bayern player to win? Do you think this is possible?Also, question: How important and crucial are those 2nd and 3rd place votes for Messi for his overall chances to win?
Finally, it is quite amazing for me to learn that Löw doesn't rate Messi very highly. Why? Just a typical case of Jogi being crazy and clueless or something else?
That is exactly what Bayern are trying to do with their campaign, the question however is who would take interest in such a campaign and why. The only group of voters that would care about Ribery winning are some journalists, but to care enough to vote tactically, they would need to be close to Bayern, French or be so big fanboys that they would do everything to see him win. Sure the French one might do it, and additionally leave out Messi. As for Bayern-close press, there's only the German press representative - but neither the journalist voting nor the magazine he is writing for is pro-Bayern, but rather neutral and very objective. Also, he in previous years always picked Messi as his first choice, despite a representative from the same magazine voting for Iniesta at the UEFA award. As for fanboys... well, those are serious journalists, I don't think they'd do that. Not even Messi had journalists tactically voting for him (i.e. excluding Ronaldo). Then aditionally, in order for the plan to work out, they would all need to exclude Messi, which is extremely unlikely (and again, there is no reason). Lastly, even if all the journalists in the world decided to plot, that would still not be sufficient to beat the votes Messi gets. Voters from all sorts of Asian and African countries almost always exclusively voted Messi for first place, I don't think anyone, including Ribery, would get them to change that, let alone start to vite tactically to support a Bayern player.Thanks again suckabov for taking the time to explain.
However though, just a thought, wouldn't it be possible that those "Bayern sympathizes"
Also, question: How important and crucial are those 2nd and 3rd place votes for Messi for his overall chances to win?
Finally, it is quite amazing for me to learn that Löw doesn't rate Messi very highly. Why? Just a typical case of Jogi being crazy and clueless or something else?
Of course some voters always vote tactically, and you can expect the French to go all Ribery. Other than those, I'm not sure who would do that for him. Lahm will include him, but I bet he will go for Schweini too, and Messi (he always included him).
As for the votes, they are counted as points. 1st place gets 5, 2nd 3 and 3rd place 1 point. Points are added and whoever has the most points wins.
Löw does rate him as the best player in the world, so he says, and he usually included him somewhere in his votes. Last year, though, his top 3 were Özil, Neuer and Xavi. He just likes to give his players credit when he thinks they deserved it (I guess he did it for the Euros). I don't think he'd include Ribery though, as Löw disagrees with whatever is currently a popular opinion. He'll probably back a German Bayern player like Lahm, Schwein or Neuer.
pattegrisen
New member
If that should been a penalty for ronaldo i wonder how many penalties barca should have i just one season i think that only neymar has had about 10 simular situations with no penalty as a result
DennyCrane
Senior Member
Ref was positioned well and immediately told CR to get up and play on already. It's a 50/50 call, and he would have probably got it if he would't hit the deck at every given opportunity. Then again, Mallenco, who usually hands out cards galore, allows for some physical play.
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darthvader7888
Banned
This.
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