Messi named upset winner of Ballon d’Or award

Argentina’s Lionel Messi won the Ballon D’Or for the second successive year yesterday beating his more favoured Barcelona team-mates Andres Iniesta and Xavi.

The 23-year-old had been seen as the outsider after a modest World Cup where he failed to score and Argentina went out in the quarter-finals.

Iniesta and Xavi both had outstanding World Cups with the former scoring the only goal in the 1-0 World Cup final victory over Holland.

Messi won with 22.65 per cent of the votes cast, with Iniesta on 17.36 per cent and Xavi third with 16.48 per cent.

Inter and Dutch playmaker Wesley Sneijder, who was a controversial omission from the short list, came in fourth with 14.48 per cent.

Messi admitted that he desperately wanted to improve his record with Argentina, with whom he has never won a title.

“In 2011, I want to win my first title with the national side,” he said.

“And as a result I asked Father Christmas to give me the present of the Copa America (which takes place this year in Argentina).

“I am going to do my utmost to win it. It is the gift I want to give to all Argentinians. My compatriots deserve a great year.”

FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who along with FIFA has come under fire already for the decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup finals, had trumpeted Messi’s claims only last week.

“No-one can deny that Lionel Messi is an exceptional player,” said the Swiss, who didn’t enjoy a great Monday as Guenter Hirsch, a former head of Germany’s highest court, resigned from FIFA’s Ethics Committee as he questioned the will of football’s top body to uphold its own rulebook.

This latest edition of the Ballon d’Or saw major changes to the way the title is nominated.

Set up in 1956 by France Football magazine the Ballon d’Or emerged with FIFA’s world player of the year award for the first time.

The voting committee, up to now made up of only journalists, now includes all the managers and captains of the 208 national sides affiliated to FIFA.

Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho was named world coach of the year for securing the treble of Champions League, Serie A title and Italian Cup with Inter last season.

The 47-year-old Portuguese – known as the ‘Special One’ – edged out Spain’s World Cup winning coach Vicente Del Bosque and Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola, who he is now crossing swords with as Real Madrid boss.

In landing the Champions League with Inter - when they beat Bayern Munich in the final last season - he became only the third coach to win European club football’s most prestigious trophy with two different clubs having first landed it with Porto in 2004.

The others were Ernst Happel, with Feyenoord in 1970 and Hamburg in 1983, and Ottmar Hitzfeld, who guided Borussia Dortmund to the 1997 trophy and then Bayern Munich in 2001.

Mourinho, never one to hide his high opinion of himself had in typically punchy fashion insisted last month that he and not Del Bosque was truly deserving of the honour.

“Me, I’ve made my choice. Eleven months work, 57 matches played, three titles including the most important of all, ‘THE’ tournament, the Champions League. I have won everything, I could not do any more than that, equally so for the players.”

The winners

Ballon D’Or
Men: L. Messi (Argentina)
Women: Martha (Brazil)

FIFA Coach of the Year
Men: J. Mourinho (Portugal)
Women: S. Neid (Germany)

FIFA Puskas Award
H. Altintop (Turkey vs Kazakhstan)

FIFA Presidential Award
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

FIFA Fair Play Award
Women’s Haiti U-17 team

FIFA/FIFPro World XI
Casillas, Pique, Puyol, Maicon, Lucio, Xavi, Iniesta, Sneijder, Messi, Ronaldo, Villa.