23 recipients one award...who will win?

Eusebio the 69-year-old Portuguese legend told SporTV that he believes Lionel Messi deserves to retain the FIFA Ballon d'Or and that Neymar can become the best player on the planet. “Right now the best player in the world is called Messi, the Argentinian,” “He’s a player who deserves it.” Eusebio, who hit 41 goals in 64 games for Portugal, was named the European Footballer of the Year in 1965, ahead of Inter Milan pair Giacinto Facchetti and Luis Suarez. Lionel Messi, already won soccer's biggest annual individual prize in 2010 and ’11, and is hoping to become the first man to receive three successive awards. Eusebio reckons his status as the sport’s best player could be challenged by Neymar in the future. The Mozambique-born former Benfica striker said of the Santos teenager: “He’s still a young player, he has qualities. He could become the best in the world if he uses his head. “He has to prepare well physically, because he knows how to play with the ball. In Europe you have to know how to play and defend in terms of your body. Like I said, the future is in his hands and his head.” Messi is one of four multiple recipients of FIFA’s award for the world’s best player, along with Ronaldo (1996, 1997 & 2002), Zinedine Zidane (1998, 2000 & 2003) and Ronaldinho (2004 & 2005). Alongside the Albiceleste captain and Neymar on this year’s 23-man shortlist are Eric Abidal, Sergio Aguero, Dani Alves, Karim Benzema, Iker Casillas, Samuel Eto’o, Cesc Fabregas, Diego Forlan, Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi, Thomas Muller, Nani, Neymar, Mesut Ozil, Gerard Pique, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Wesley Sneijder, Luis Suarez, David Villa, Xabi Alonso and Xavi. The winner will be revealed at the FIFA Gala at the Kongresshaus in Zurich on Monday 12 January 2012. It will be very interesting to see who will get this well anticipated award with so many great players out there. If i can remember correctly i believe that at the end of the World Cup 2010 Diego Forlan won the golden shoe award and Iker Casillas won the golden glove award, with these awards recently handed to them it just comes to say that if Messi and Neymar want to win that award they're going to have to step up their game a bit!

The "underdogs" are moving up

World and European champions Spain remain unchallenged atop of this month’s FIFA/Coca- Cola World Ranking. La Roja’s having lost to England and draw with Costa Rica lost them

points, fortunatly for them their place on the global ladder remains unchanged. Just behind them, a shocking Germany is dangerously close to the second-placed Netherlands following their 3-0 victory in the match between the two sides. Right on their tale is Uruguay, who are continuing

to make progress due to their convincing 4-0 win over Chile in the South American Zone qualifiers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil and a friendly defeat of Italy, which brought Cesare Prandelli's team's 13-game unbeaten run to an end. Within the top ten, England (5th, up 2) have climbed up the Ranking, as have Portugal (7th, up 1) and Croatia (8th, up 4) thanks to recent successes in UEFA EURO 2012 qualifying. In the top 50, meanwhile, Czech Republic (33rd, up 14) and surprisingly Ecuador (42nd, up 10) have made the biggest jumps. The next three teams are currently in their highest-ever position since the launch of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking back in August 1993: Venezuela (39th, up 1), Cape Verde Islands (57th, up 9) and Antigua and Barbuda (83rd, up 7). What's even more shocking, Sao Tome e Príncipe (192nd, new) have been ranked for the first time in four years. In all, 131 international 'A' matches were played in the past month, of which 72 were Brazil 2014 preliminaries, eight were EURO 2012 qualifiers and the remaining 51 were friendlies. Seeing how much procress all these teams are making, even teams many of us never even heard of are doing, now really brings out the question will there soon be a new world leader?? Or better yet will an "underdog" win the world cup in 2014 over all the "strong teams"?? If all these "underdog" teams keeping jumping up 5, 10 up to 14 then Spain, Netherlands, Germany and Urguay better watch their backs. Did you guys notice that Brazil is not even in the top 5?....My point exactly!

11/11/11 .....an exciting day or a bad day??

11/11/11 was a day to remember for obvious reasons.....especially in the soccer world. This date for many is a curious date in the calendar but turned out to be a postive one for Uruguay especially for their striker Luis Suarez, with a 4-0 win over Chile that sent them straight to the top of the south american standings. With Suarez scoring all 4 goals to win Chile he is now with an impressive 26 goals in 52 appearances for his country's senior side. Unfortunatly 11/11/11 was not a date many Argentinians or Colombians want to remember, instead of gaining 3 points because they were the favourites to win against Bolivia and Venezula, they had to settle with a tie (a score of 1 point). For Colombia at first it seemed that they had the points in the bag because of an early score in the first half but it wasn't till late in the game that venezula's midfielder scored leaving the game as a 1-1 final. Argentina on the other hand was even more embaressed having only tied with Bolivia on home soil. Bolivia made Argentina sweat because at first it seemed that Bolivia was going to win that game with the first goal in the 56th min until finally Argentina was able to get on pass Bolivia. In the end you can say that Argentina underestimated Bolivia just like everyone else as well as Colombia underestimating Venezula. The only thing i can say about this whole thing is that we don't know who is going to win anymore. The "strong" teams don't seem that strong anymore it really just is anyone's game at this point. If this keeps up it may not even be a favourite to win the world cup (Spain, Brazil, Netherlands), it just may be that team that everyone thinks won't even make it out of the round of 16, that team that everyone keeps underestimating.......all i gotta say is that it's going to be one hell of a ride!!