Barcelona trio Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta have been shortlisted for the 2010 Fifa Ballon d'Or award.

The new award is the result of a merger between the Fifa world player of the year and the Ballon d'Or, which was decided by football journalists.

Messi, who won both titles in 2009, is again favourite after scoring 34 league goals last season and 15 so far this.

Xavi and Iniesta helped Barca win the league and Spain the World Cup and the winner will be announced on 10 January.

Iniesta scored the solitary goal in the World Cup final as Spain defeated the Netherlands 1-0 in extra-time to lift the trophy for the first time.

Messi had a disappointing World Cup, failing to score in the tournament, as Argentina crashed out in the quarter-finals, beaten 4-0 by Germany.

Two of the three men vying for the new coach of the year award are also Spanish.

Barca's Pep Guardiola and Spain's World Cup-winning coach Vicente del Bosque have been recognised for their achievements, although the third nominee, Jose Mourinho, had arguably a better year.

606: DEBATE
Who will win the Fifa Ballon d'Or?

Mourinho, who moved to Spain to take over as Real Madrid boss in the summer, guided Italian side Inter Milan to an unprecedented Serie A, Coppa Italia and Champions League treble.

Brazilian Marta, who has won the women's world player of the year on four occasions, is joined on a three-woman shortlist by German duo Fatmire Bajramaj and Birgit Prinz.

The women's coaching category will be contested by Maren Meinert (Germany Under-20 national team), Silvia Neid (Germany national team) and Pia Sundhage (United States national team).

Iker Casillas lifts the World Cup for Spain

Highlights - Netherlands 0-1 Spain


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They ve been playing together for quite a while for both club and country. what do u expect?

They ve been playing together for quite a while for both club and country. what do u expect?

These are the reaaaaaaaaaaaaaal heroes of football.

Those who plays the most prestigious football I had ever seen since I grew up to love the round-leather game.

Their feet control ball more than magnet controls metal chips.

The only Team I can support if they had to play with the celestials.

Barca is the only team that plays Ideal soccer.

All others including my team are gonna beees.

The trio deserve being there.

Kudos.

What else can one expect from this three professionals?
They have so jelled together that they are like "Aro Meta ti ki i da obe nu (A tripod stove that doesn't throw away the soup).

nice to know about that




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Sneijder snub by FIFA is a disgrace

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Updated Dec 7, 2010 4:00 PM ET

FIFA has shortlisted the top three players for the 2010 Ballon d'Or honor.

That isn't a surprise, but what is surprising is that list doesn't have the name of Inter Milan playmaker Wesley Sneijder. Instead, the famous Barcelona trio of Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernandez will fight it out for the prestigious award.


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Messi, as you would expect, is the front-runner with 34 League goals during 2009/10 season, which saw him pick up the European Golden Shoe.

Xavi played consistently well and just deserves to be on the list, but Iniesta actually wasn't at his best during the first half of last season. However, his match-winning goal in the final of the FIFA World Cup 2010 seems to be just enough to ensure a place on the list, which means Sneijder misses out.

One may ask how on earth Sneijder missed out after his best season in club and International play. That's FIFA for you. The ludicrous FIFA wrapped up in the blanket of corruption.

After denying England the chance to host 2018 World Cup, now FIFA is loath to recognize the contributions of a wonderfully talented player, which is inviting ridicule upon the federation that's supposed to promote and recognize talent instead of turning a blind eye.

Wesley Sneijder was part of Jose Mourinho's treble-winning Inter Milan team -- in fact, he was the lynchpin and shouldered the offensive duties alongside Diego Milito. He played a key role in Inter winning the Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the coveted Champions League.

FOX SPORTS POLLWho is most deserving of the Player of the Year award?
Lionel Messi
Andres Iniesta
Xavi
Wesley Sneijder



He was promptly named the UEFA midfielder of the year, which just serves as a testament to his consistency and effectiveness during the best part of a successful campaign where his individual performance aided the team to a treble.

His exploits don't end there. After guiding his club to glory, Sneijder reprised his world-beating form for the Netherlands in the World Cup. He was the mainstay of an above average Holland side that contested in the final of the World Cup -- to the surprise of many -- which they eventually lost to Spain.

However, Sneijder scored five goals and received four Man of the Match awards and fittingly was named the second best player of the tournament.

The Ballon d'Or is awarded to the player who has been the best performer over a calendar year and not just to a player who has won the World Cup. Barcelona only won La Liga last season, so even in terms of silverware Sneijder has won more than any of the Barcelona players, if individual performance doesn't suffice you to a top three spot.

FIFA's decision to omit Sneijder, arguably the best player in 2009/10 season, from the shortlist for Xavi and Iniesta is a disgrace to football. The game voices for fairplay but ironically the federation in charge is biased toward a club that plays in a league where several teams aren't even as competitive as Serie B sides.

Comparing or contrasting the competitiveness of any league is unnecessary. Let's just appreciate and recognize the contributions of a footballer who has been viciously ignored by the farcical body called FIFA, shall we?

Robin Severo is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, the open source sports network.

Ballon D'Or Debate: Disgraceful Snub Of Wesley Sneijder Highlights Inherent Flaws In FIFA Award Process
After getting stick last week over award decisions, FIFA are in the firing line again, but Goal.com’s Kris Voakes thinks they’ve really shown themselves up this time.
By Kris Voakes
Dec 7, 2010 7:30:00 AM
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Wesley Sneijder

If you’ll allow me a moment before I get to the crux of my ire this week, I’d like to admit an allegiance in the argument regarding the FIFA Ballon d’Or award. Simply put, I think it’s a complete and utter nonsense.

In a sport which is so intrinsically team-based, why oh why people need to pick the bones out of everything Player X does in comparison to Player Y, heaven only knows. And some – naming no names, Carlo Garganese – like to then break down the merits of footballers over a period of up to half a century and decide that Player Q is actually better than either X or Y. But one of the best things about football is that it generates such a vast array of opinions, and the ‘greatest player in the world’ debate is just another topic for people to get their teeth into, so who am I to stop them?

My opinion on the Ballon d’Or stands though, and this has only been strengthened over the past couple of months as this year’s shortlist was announced and then subsequently reduced to a final three on Monday. Now you may expect me, a confessed Italophile, who lives in Italy and travels the country almost daily to follow the nation’s football, to base an anti-Ballon d’Or argument on the preposterous decision not to include Diego Milito in the final 23 and his Inter team-mate Wesley Sneijder’s mind-bending exclusion from the final three. But while those two omissions were nothing short of disgraceful, they simply bring into focus the inherent problem with the whole system used in order to decide who the world’s greatest player supposedly is.
Sneijder played a huge part in Inter's historic treble


There are far too many questions which are left hanging over such a decision. Until recently, the poll was meant to be reflective of the best player of the previous full season. For instance, Fabio Cannavaro won the 2006 gong for his immense display at the World Cup to follow a title-winning season with Juventus, rather than his shaky start to life at Real Madrid from August onwards. Under the new united FIFA/France Football banner, which has created a mish-mash of the old European and World Football awards, we have to wait until January 10 for a decision, presumably so that any performances on December 31 at a mid-season break in Dubai can still be considered in the final thinking.

Yet how does that work if the original 25-man list is drawn up in October? And why should it be a calendar year vote when all of the bigger games that really sort out the men from the boys are largely played in May, June and July. The Goal.com 50 was widely praised last summer after taking votes from editors and fans all around the world immediately after the World Cup before the overall winner was announced to the public in early August. The winner – Wesley Sneijder was the editors' choice – was therefore not ‘punished’ for having had a poor start to the 2010-11 season as his club began the campaign poorly under a new reign. Instead it was a fair reflection of a player who had peaked at the right time and had delivered the goods.
Previous Ballon d'Or winners since 2000

2000 Luis Figo - Barcelona/Real Madrid
2001 Michael Owen - Liverpool
2002 Ronaldo - Inter/Real Madrid
2003 Pavel Nedved - Juventus
2004 Andriy Shevchenko - Milan
2005 Ronaldinho - Barcelona
2006 Fabio Cannavaro - Juventus/Real Madrid
2007 Kaka - Milan
2008 Cristiano Ronaldo - Manchester United
2009 Lionel Messi (above) - Barcelona


Digging further into the Ballon d’Or ‘planning’, even worse is to come when we look at the list of people who get to vote. The chosen ones are split into two categories; one the coaches and captains of the 208 FIFA-affiliated national teams, and the other over 100 football journalists from 96 countries. It all sounds quite fair and noble until you actually look at the names involved and the less obvious circumstances which should be taken into account.

Taking the national team representatives first, let us use India as an example for many of football’s lesser nations, and a great point forwarded by Goal.com India’s Rahul Bali. “I’m dead sure the Indian captain and coach wouldn’t have voted for Sneijder, simply because their only exposure of him - World Cup aside - is during Champions League matches,” said Rahul. “Even those come when there are games of Arsenal, Manchester United etc. on at the same time, which, due to the TV exposure of such sides, means few people would go out of their way to watch Inter.”

This exact fault can also be said of the journalists who are chosen. Does anyone seriously believe that the Daily Telegraph’s Henry Winter would spend more time than is absolutely necessary watching Wesley Sneijder or Diego Milito playing football. After all, surely it makes his job easier to trip out the old stereotype of Jose Mourinho beating Chelsea all by himself after Sneijder has stamped his mark all over a second leg Champions League victory? And it’s not just him. I myself am in no position to accurately gauge who might be the best player in the world, as my exposure has been just as lop-sided over the past 12 months, just in a different direction, though I would like to think that I’m a little more subjective than the esteemed Mr Winter.

But even then the journalist category needs further inspection. For instance, the Dutch representative is from a newspaper called Eindhovens Dagblad, which is a minor local paper chosen over a number of more renowned nationals. Would you really expect to see reporters from the Wetwang Weekly Gazette or the Corriere di Cosenza being asked to cast a vote on behalf of their whole country? Then there’s the German journalist who is nowadays actually a freelance, working a lot of the time with a certain organisation called FIFA. And surely chief among the many more examples of stupidity in the whole process comes in the Spanish choice, Paco Aguilar of El Mundo Deportivo, the well-known Barcelona-friendly Catalan sports daily.
Past FIFA World Player of the Year winners

2000 Zinedine Zidane (above) - Juventus
2001 Luis Figo - Real Madrid
2002 Ronaldo - Inter/Real Madrid
2003 Zinedine Zidane - Real Madrid
2004 Ronaldinho - Barcelona
2005 Ronaldinho - Barcelona
2006 Fabio Cannavaro - Juventus/Real Madrid
2007 Kaka - Milan
2008 Cristiano Ronaldo - Manchester United
2009 Lionel Messi - Barcelona


All of which means that the actual 25 shortlisted players, the three ‘finalists’ and the eventual winner are all just a by-product of an ill-thought out, badly judged voting system which reflects in no way on what actually goes on on the football field. That Sneijder won the treble with Inter before finishing joint highest scorer at the World Cup – and was one Arjen Robben shot away from having a world-conquering assist to his name to boot – just draws further attention to the flaws which are inherent in such an award’s very existence.

So when one of the all-Barcelona final three of Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi is crowned as the ‘Best Player in the World’ next month, please don’t start taking it to actually mean anything. The real prizes get handed out in the summer.
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To me personally, as an avid supporter of football not of individual players, no matter how you look at it, Sneider ought to be in the top three.

Last season, no player came close to his form and accomplishment for club and country.