He might be the rank outsider for the award, but the Frenchman has done more than Ronaldo or Messi in 2013
Cast your mind back to January 2011. We were emerging from the massive snowfall at the end of 2010 and the Fianna Fail/Green government were just about to implode and cause a general election. Understandably, that was keeping us quite busy here but the 2010 Ballon d’Or ceremony didn’t slip past us.
Wesley Sneijder, despite inspiring Inter Milan to Champions League success and Holland to the World Cup final finished fourth, behind Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. That trio were, naturally, brilliant in that calendar year and grabbed an awful lot of headlines but Sneijder was the most influential player in 2010 and he should have won the Ballon d’Or that year.
We fear that for 2010 Sneijder you can also read 2013 Franck Ribery. The Frenchman won virtually every trophy he had a chance to win last year. He led Bayern to success in the Bundesliga, the German Cup and the Champions League. Only the German Super Cup, which Bayern lost to Dortmund, evaded him, and Ribery wasn’t in the match day squad for that game.
While Arjen Robben may have got the goal that won the Champions League for Bayern, it was Ribery who was involved in the first goal and he played the Dutchman in for the crucial second, with a little bit of luck.
His performance over the entirety of the 2012-13 season earned Ribery Uefa’s Best Player in Europe Award, beating, by definition, Ronaldo and Messi.
So, what has Ribery done in the 2013-14 season so far? Well he was the driving force as Bayern won the World Club Championship in December, picking up the Player of the Tournament award and he has been superb as Bayern romp away, unbeaten, at the top of the Bundesliga.
On the international front, he helped salvage France’s World Cup hopes, scoring twice to nab a 4-2 come-from-behind win over Belarus away in September, where defeat would have surely ended any chance of going to Brazil. And in November, Ribery played a starring role as France overturned a 2-0 first leg deficit to beat Ukraine 3-0 in Paris and book their place at this summer’s jamboree via the playoffs.
Okay, the Ballon d’Or is an individual award but team success, especially when the player is so integral to that success, has to be factored in. In 2013 Ronaldo won nothing, despite his superb individual displays. Messi picked up another La Liga title but he has slipped back in the personal stats just a little from the admittedly sensational 2012 he delivered.
Ribery is certainly not as high profile as his competitors, and his goals tally simply cannot compete. But as the best player on the best team in Europe, and with his significant contribution to their outstanding 2013, he would be a worthy winner of the biggest individual award in football.
At 12/1, he’s a very long shot, but the Sneijder decision looks more and more incorrect with each passing year. Let’s hope Fifa don’t make a similar mistake this time.
To read why Conor Heneghan thinks Cristiano Ronaldo should get the award, just click here
