Chapter 289 Chinese players enter the top five of the Ballon d’Or for the first time!
After more than half a month, France Football finally announced the winner of the 2006 Ballon d'Or - Italian Cannavaro had the last laugh, becoming the first defender in the history of the Ballon d'Or to win the trophy.
Before him, during the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Brazilian Carlos came very close to this goal with his outstanding performance in the World Cup.
But he ultimately lost out to his international teammate Ronaldo and finished second, becoming the highest-ranked defender of all time.
Cannavaro's situation is a bit similar to that of Carlos back then, but there is no strong competitor like the aliens in this year's Italian team.
But even so, the gap in votes between him and his national team teammate Buffon is still very small.
Ranked third is not Zidane or Ronaldinho, but French forward Henry.
This result was completely unexpected. Although Zidane made a mistake in the final, his performance during the World Cup was absolutely impeccable, especially in the knockout stage, where he had highlights in almost every game.
Without him providing assists and scoring goals on the field, the French team might not even be able to get past Spain, let alone the stronger Brazilian team they faced later.
No one has any objection to ranking Cannavaro or even Buffon before Zidane.
After all, winners take all. The Italian team won the World Cup, but the French team did not, so they are naturally inferior.
But as the captain and core of the French team, he was not even given the third place, which is really unacceptable!
"What are the judges of the Ballon d'Or doing? It was already controversial to let Cannavaro win the award, and now they have excluded Zidane from the top three. They want to destroy the credibility of the Ballon d'Or!"
"According to the unspoken rules of the Ballon d'Or in the competition year, there is not much controversy about awarding the Ballon d'Or to Cannavaro. The Italian team actually relies on defense to attack, and the best defenders are either Cannavaro or Buffon. You can't give the Ballon d'Or to Materazzi. Although the collision with Zidane was indeed important, it was too embarrassing and not worth showing off!"
"In fact, if you think about which country the Ballon d'Or is held in, you will understand why Zidane can't make the top three!"
"Yes, for the French, Zidane's red card in the final is unforgivable. With his uncalm behavior, he negated all the efforts made by himself and his teammates. If I were French, I would also vote for him. Wouldn't it be better to vote for Henry, Ribery, Vieira and other players who silently contributed to the team?"
"Although this is the main reason, I think Zidane's poor performance in Real Madrid last season is also the main reason for his loss of points. Although it is a big competition year, the club's performance is also very important. Among the top ten, there are also many people who have never participated in the World Cup, such as Lin Feng who ranked fifth and Eto'o who ranked seventh."
……
While European fans were still arguing about Fanavaro's Ballon d'Or and why Zidane did not make the top three, in the far east, Chinese fans had already started telling others after seeing the Ballon d'Or rankings announced by France Football!
"Lin Feng is really amazing. He actually made it into the top five for the Golden Globe Awards!"
"This is the Ballon d'Or ranking for the World Cup year. If there was no World Cup this year, I can't imagine where he would rank!"
"If there was no World Cup, Buffon and Fabio Cannavaro would definitely not be in the front. Without them, Lin Feng might have made it into the top three!"
"Oh my God, a Chinese player made it into the top three of the Ballon d'Or. This was something I never dared to dream of before, but I didn't expect it to be realized!"
"There will be no World Cup next year, so the ranking for the Ballon d'Or will most likely depend on the Champions League and league honors. Inter Milan is in a good position to win the Serie A this season, but it's hard to say about the Champions League, but if they can reach the semi-finals or even the finals like last year, I feel that Lin Feng should be in the top three!"
Thinking of this, Chinese fans couldn't help but start looking forward to it.
As long as Lin Feng can maintain his current form, does not suffer any major injuries, and continues his excellent performance in the league and the Champions League, they can look forward to next year's Golden Ball Award in advance!
If Inter Milan accidentally wins the Champions League, let alone being in the top three of the Ballon d'Or, they might even be able to dream of getting first place!
Lin Feng was also paying attention to this year's Golden Globe Awards. When he learned that he had made it into the top five, he couldn't believe it.
So I specially looked for relevant reports and carefully checked the specific scores of the top ten players.
Cannavaro, who came in first, scored 173 points, Buffon 124 points, Henry, who came in third, scored 3 points less than Buffon, and Ronaldinho, who came in fourth, fell below 100 points, with only 73 points.
Lin Feng's score was one point lower than Ronaldinho's, only 72 points.
Zidane was one point lower than him, ranking sixth with 71 points.
Eto'o, who came in seventh, scored 67 points, while Kroos, Drogba and Pirlo, who came after him, only had 29 points, 25 points and 17 points respectively, which was obviously a level lower than the players in front of them.
When Lin Feng saw this ranking and his own score, he subconsciously felt that the organizer was praising him too much.
My score is actually higher than Zidane's and only one point less than Ronaldinho. Isn't this just putting myself on the spot?
When their fans see this ranking, won’t they be furious?
As for why "France Football" ranked them this way, Lin Feng had a guess in his mind that FIFA seemed to have intended to establish him and Kaka as positive examples and role models for young players to learn from.
Since we want to set up examples, we naturally have to help them become famous, and there is no faster and more effective way to become famous than the Golden Globe Award.
This made Lin Feng a little panicked. Being unworthy of one's position was a very fatal thing.
As the saying goes, the harder you blow, the harder you fall.
The most typical example is Barcelona's 'genius' player, Bojan, who broke a series of records in Barcelona's youth team and is known as the second Messi.
After a large number of talented players such as Xhaka and Messi were born in the La Masia youth training camp, the four words "La Masia" have become a myth by the outside world.
As a record-breaker in La Masia's youth training camp, Bojan has attracted close attention from the entire football world before he was promoted to the first team.
The outside world only saw the series of records he broke in the youth team, and they praised him highly, wanting to praise him to the sky.
But Bojan does not have that strong strength, and the final result is a huge backlash.
Bojan, who had too high expectations for himself, did not work hard in lower-level leagues like other young players, but instead wasted his youth on the Barcelona bench.
However, his lack of appreciation and poor performance on the field continued to undermine his self-confidence, making him begin to doubt his own abilities. In the end, his playing time got worse and worse, and after moving to many teams, he still couldn't find the environment that suited him best.
With the example of Boyang in front of him, Lin Feng had to learn from the lesson.
Fortunately, he maintains a very good mentality and is full of confidence in his future strength. After all, with the system in hand, he will definitely become stronger and stronger in the future!
……
Besides Lin Feng himself, AC Milan's star player Kaka was also surprised that he made it into the top five of the Ballon d'Or!
Kaka doesn't think that his performance is worse than the other. Lin Feng has not even participated in the World Cup, but he led the team into the quarterfinals of the World Cup.
But he didn't even make it into the top ten of the Ballon d'Or, while Lin Feng ranked fifth, which was a bit unacceptable to Kaka. In the 17th round of the league, Kaka, who was full of anger, took it out on Catania.
In this game, Kaka performed his specialty of long-distance running twice in a row, and finally completed a hat trick, helping the team to win a big victory over the opponent at home.
Seeing Kaka's crazy performance next door, Lin Feng couldn't help but be amazed.
Who provoked this guy to act so crazy?
He had only seen Kaka in this state in the knockout round of the 06-07 Champions League.
Since Kaka has shown his true ability, Lin Feng naturally cannot fall behind.
In the subsequent match between Inter Milan and Lazio, Lin Feng scored two goals and provided two assists, helping the team to win 4:1 away from home against Lazio.
Although he scored one goal less than Kaka, Lin Feng scored all the goals for the team and created one more goal than Kaka. With two assists in exchange for one goal, the two are considered tied.
Seeing the core players of the two Milan giants challenging each other, each one more crazy than the other, the major media and the onlookers were so excited!
That's right. Only sufficient competition can bring more exciting games to the fans.
They hoped that Lin Feng and Kaka could score goals against each other in the next game.
However, in this season's Serie A scoring and assists lists, Kaka ranks behind Lin Feng.
As of the 17th round of the league, Lin Feng has scored a total of 9 goals and completed 10 assists in the league.
His number of goals currently ranks second in the scorer list, only behind Totti who has scored 12 goals. Kaka has only 5 goals and is currently ranked 11th in the scorer list.
On the assists list, Lin Feng was far ahead and topped the list with a huge advantage.
Compared with last season, Lin Feng's goal data has declined due to his absence from more games this season due to various reasons.
But his performance in the Champions League was even better than last season.
So far, Lin Feng has scored a total of 5 goals in six group matches, and also had 2 assists.
This result was achieved even though he missed a game, which shows how high his scoring efficiency is!
At a time when top shooters like Messi and Ronaldo have not yet entered their prime, Lin Feng's statistics are definitely outstanding and unique in the Champions League.
With 5 Champions League goals, he ranks first in the Champions League scorer list, 2 goals more than the second place!
Speaking of which, the fact that the organizers of the Ballon d'Or ranked Lin Feng in the top five of the Ballon d'Or was not really arranged by FIFA.
In terms of honors, as the core of the team, he led the team to win the league championship, cup championship and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.
In terms of personal statistics, Lin Feng scored a total of 36 goals and completed 27 assists in the league and Champions League last season, which is quite impressive.
Lin Feng compared himself with the peak period of Messi and Ronaldo, who scored sixty to seventy goals in a season and more than ten goals in the Champions League. Naturally, he felt that his current data was nothing.
But in the eyes of others, his performance in the league and the Champions League is enough to dazzle everyone's eyes!
He had seen the strength of the two peerless heroes, but no one else had seen it!
So in their eyes, Lin Feng became that monster!
And the most terrifying thing is that this guy is not a striker, but a proper midfielder, and even the tactical core of the team.
Looking at it this way, the data he obtained is even more terrifying!
Inter Milan and AC Milan scored goals against each other in the first half, which made Roma, the last team to play, feel under great pressure.
When facing Torino away from home, Roma was once in trouble and was unable to break the deadlock.
Fortunately, both Ade and Totti stood up. Totti, who felt his position in the scorer list was threatened, delivered a record of one pass and one shot in this game, while Ade also scored a goal, raising his number of goals this year to 7 goals, ranking fourth in the scorer list.
Originally, Ade would suffer a setback in his career this year due to psychological reasons, and his condition and on-field data would decline significantly.
But history has deviated a little here. It seems that due to the stimulation of being kicked out of Inter Milan, Ade did not give up on himself this season. Although he still cannot change his habit of going to nightclubs to get drunk, his attitude towards training is still positive.
In addition, Spalletti attached great importance to him and gave him certain care in formulating offensive tactics, which made Ade's performance in Rome remarkable.
If Roma's lineup wasn't a little thin, they should have achieved better results in the league and the Champions League.
……
After the 17th round, only two days later, the 18th round of Serie A started.
This is the last game before the winter break. After this game, all Serie A teams will start their holidays and let the players go home to celebrate Christmas.
This year's Serie A winter break is much shorter than in previous years. In the past, the winter break could last for one month, but this year's winter break is only 20 days.
This was mainly due to the impact of the World Cup and the Calciopoli scandal. As the second-instance verdict of the Calciopoli scandal had been delayed, the Serie A season was delayed until September, lagging far behind other leagues in terms of time.
Like the Bundesliga, they finished the last game of the first half and started the holiday a week ago.
Moreover, the Bundesliga's winter break lasts for 40 days, the longest among the five major leagues. This alone makes many players envious.
But in addition to the lucky ones like the Bundesliga, there are also unlucky ones like the Premier League.
Not only do they have no winter break, but they also have to play fast over the Christmas period, and it is common for them to schedule three or even four games a week.
I really don’t know how their players would feel when they see players from other leagues spending Christmas at home with their families, while they themselves have to endure the torture of the Christmas Express?
(End of this chapter)
