Franck Ribery

[Aryagorn]

If Messi doesn’t win this year, it’s not a tragedy, give him a break, he is only 26 and he has already won the ballon d’or 4 time in a row + 3 golden shoes.
I think Ribery will win.
CR has 0 chance to win.

If he made it 5 in a row he would rest the 'Messi the best even without a WC' arguement once and for all

 

[ryuken]

He cant never stop that argument, haters will always hate.

 

[Aryagorn]

He cant never stop that argument, haters will always hate.

at least it would rub it in their face

 

[Luftstalag14]

If Messi doesn’t win this year, it’s not a tragedy, give him a break, he is only 26 and he has already won the ballon d’or 4 time in a row + 3 golden shoes.
I think Ribery will win.
CR has 0 chance to win.

My question remains, if this is to be a Bayern award, why should Ribery, out of all Bayern players, win it?

What makes Ribery more eligible, deserving, better than other Bayern players? What has he done?

 

[DonAndres]

I think, or I hope, CR7 is even further away from the award than Messi does... What with the Bayern's tremendous success, Messi's better stats even while injured and Real's subpar league run last season and a shaky start this time

All of that is true but all of the 3 players in contention (Messi, Ronaldo, Ribery) have some crippling vices that keep them from being obvious choices. Ribery is not even close to the level of Messi or Ronaldo individually. Messi has suffered through injuries and was a part of a Barca CL campaign that will always be smeared in the eyes of the public because of the 7-0 loss. Ronaldo will be looked down on for the fact that Real crashed out in all 3 major competitions last season.

The thing with Ronaldo that gives him a possible slight and unspectacular edge is that despite his team doing dismally, he's managed to be a consistent and fit goalscorer and made headlines with his goals/performances in big games such as the Clasico's and CL knockout stages. He was top scorer of the CL and he's really boosted his image because of his 2013 numbers being higher than Messi's (cause of the injuries) and for being a deadly goalscorer against elite teams. Messi has the proper excuse that he couldn't have done better than Ronaldo because of his time out, but that doesn't change the fact that he did miss a lot of games this year and his performance can't be rated very thoroughly or consistently because of that.

Either way, this Ballon D'or will be awarded to one of those players not because he was that fantastically above everyone else but because he managed to edge them out due to some misfortune or lacking credentials.

 

[suckabov]

Again, the voting process for the UEFA Best Player was in Ribery's favour, which is not the case for the FIFA Ballon D'Or. And if you look at thevoting results of all the years Messi won it, it becomes obvious that Ribery will most likely not be the player to beat Messi.
Ronaldo is even more unlikely considering he got 3 (!) votes for the UEFA best player award, one being from Marca. His numbers didn't help him then and won't help him now.

Also, the top 3 isn't even announced. It's by no means guaranteed that Ribery will make it there.

 

[Aryagorn]

Again, the voting process for the UEFA Best Player was in Ribery's favour, which is not the case for the FIFA Ballon D'Or. And if you look at thevoting results of all the years Messi won it, it becomes obvious that Ribery will most likely not be the player to beat Messi.
Ronaldo is even more unlikely considering he got 3 (!) votes for the UEFA best player award, one being from Marca. His numbers didn't help him then and won't help him now.

Also, the top 3 isn't even announced. It's by no means guaranteed that Ribery will make it there.

It would be hilarious if Ribery wasn't in it

 

[Alissa]

If Iniesta with his brilliant WC performance and the trophy to show for it couldn't beat Messi, (and no disrespect to Ribery but Iniesta is twice the player Ribery is) you really think that Ribery will be THE player that will finally manage to beat Messi? I just can't see it and frankly, it would be wrong. If anyone right now manages to beat Messi it should be Ronaldo, there is noone else that comes even close to him.

I'm conviced Messi will make it 5 in a row.

 

[suckabov]

It would be hilarious if Ribery wasn't in it

I know, fingers crossed!

If Iniesta with his brilliant WC performance and the trophy to show for it couldn't beat Messi, (and no disrespect to Ribery but Iniesta is twice the player Ribery is) you really think that Ribery will be THE player that will finally manage to beat Messi? I just can't see it and frankly, it would be wrong. If anyone right now manages to beat Messi it should be Ronaldo, there is noone else that comes even close to him.

I'm conviced Messi will make it 5 in a row.

Yeah, me too. Ronaldo is the only one who COULD do it, but he'd have to pull off something truly great, like winning the world cup next year or winning the treble. In other words, he won't.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Again, the voting process for the UEFA Best Player was in Ribery's favour, which is not the case for the FIFA Ballon D'Or. And if you look at thevoting results of all the years Messi won it, it becomes obvious that Ribery will most likely not be the player to beat Messi.
Ronaldo is even more unlikely considering he got 3 (!) votes for the UEFA best player award, one being from Marca. His numbers didn't help him then and won't help him now.

Also, the top 3 isn't even announced. It's by no means guaranteed that Ribery will make it there.

If I got this right, the top three will be announced on December 9th? And by then we will already know who won?

Please excuse me if we already went over this (I remember you covered in great details, suckabov): Will the same media reps who voted in the UEFA Best Player Award be voting in the Ballon d'Or, representing European media? If so, then we might count Europe out since the vast majority of them voted for Ribery and there is a good chance that Ribery winning the UEFA Best Player Award will sway the opinions of some of European NT captains and managers. So we are left with the rest of the world to pull for Messi?

 

[Aryagorn]

If I got this right, the top three will be announced on December 9th? And by then we will already know who won?

We won't know by then... The process is that the UEFA collects all the votes(from the media, managers and the NT captains) by then. They get to know the exact result but they only release the top 3 list. And then anounce the winner in the ceremony that they later organize.

 

[Luftstalag14]

We won't know by then... The process is that the UEFA collects all the votes(from the media, managers and the NT captains) by then. They get to know the exact result but they only release the top 3 list. And then anounce the winner in the ceremony that they later organize.

So we will only know the top three but won't know the order in which the top three are placed until the ceremony?

 

[Aryagorn]

So we will only know the top three but won't know the order in which the top three are placed until the ceremony?

true... But I don't know the exact reason why they do that. They could as well anounce the winner beforehand, spare us the unnecessary stress and then arrange a ceremony to present him the award! May be it got something to do with them selling the TV rights of the ceremony for a whopping price

 

[Galning]

If Iniesta with his brilliant WC performance and the trophy to show for it couldn't beat Messi, (and no disrespect to Ribery but Iniesta is twice the player Ribery is) you really think that Ribery will be THE player that will finally manage to beat Messi? I just can't see it and frankly, it would be wrong. If anyone right now manages to beat Messi it should be Ronaldo, there is noone else that comes even close to him.

I'm conviced Messi will make it 5 in a row.

 

[suckabov]

If I got this right, the top three will be announced on December 9th? And by then we will already know who won?

Please excuse me if we already went over this (I remember you covered in great details, suckabov): Will the same media reps who voted in the UEFA Best Player Award be voting in the Ballon d'Or, representing European media? If so, then we might count Europe out since the vast majority of them voted for Ribery and there is a good chance that Ribery winning the UEFA Best Player Award will sway the opinions of some of European NT captains and managers. So we are left with the rest of the world to pull for Messi?

As Aryagorn said, we won't know who won until the ceremony; the winner will be determined much earlier though, just after the votes are counted. So when they announce the top three, they already know who is the winner, runner up and so on. Meaning the voters don't get the chance to make up their mind and think, "well now that it's between Ribery, Messi and Ronaldo, I'd opt for Ribery", which was what happened for UEFA Best Player. They have only one vote which counts.

As for your other question, no, they are not the same. It's two different journalists voting for the UEFA best player and FIFA Ballon D'Or, although they might represent the same magazine. What is of interest here is that a majority of the "countries" who voted for Ribery now as best UEFA player gave their vote to Iniesta last year, but voted for Messi at the Ballon D'Or. So in other words, the same journalist representing one country voted for Iniesta and Ribery, while another representative of the same country voted for Messi at the BD. If we are to expect the same behaviour this year, which is likely given that the journalists voting for UEFA BP/BD are largely the same as last year, then there shouldn't really be any surprises.

true... But I don't know the exact reason why they do that. They could as well anounce the winner beforehand, spare us the unnecessary stress and then arrange a ceremony to present him the award! May be it got something to do with them selling the TV rights of the ceremony for a whopping price

Well, it's basically the same procedure the Academy of Motion Arts uses for the Oscars, so it's mostly suspense I guess.