Brazil Legend Ronaldo Set to Retire Today

Brazilian soccer legend Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima, simply known as Ronaldo, is set to retire today, Feb 14th, 2011.

In the late 1990s and early 2000, he was one of the most prolific scorers in the world. He has helped his country to win twice the World Cup trophies and remains to be the tournament’s all-time top scorer with fifteen goals. He won his first Ballon d’Or at only 21 years old and again 5 years later. He has won the FIFA Player of the Year award three times (1996, 1997, and 2002) and remains to be one of only 2 football player to have achieved that, the other one being Zinedine Zidane. After 18 years of wearing a professional soccer sports wear, he will finally take it off. His retirement ends 18 years of stellar performance in a sport where he is considered by experts to be one of the greatest players.

Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper reported:

"I can't take any more, I wanted to continue, but I can't do it any more. I think of an action, but I can't do it the way I want to. It's time. It's the body that's hurting me. The head wants to go on, but the body can't take any more."

In 2010, Ronaldo already announced that he will be retiring in 2011 but many claims it might have been pushed forward because of the succession of injuries and the early disappointing elimination of Corinthians from Latin America’s most prestigious competition, Copa Libertadores. Fans and supporters of Corinthians blame the players, especially Ronaldo, and the violence made him consider putting an end to his career earlier than the end of the year as planned.

Ronaldo may have been out of shape these days add to the fact that most of players these days are getting younger and younger but he certainly wore his teams’ sports wear proudly. And made the team proud he was wearing their soccer home and away team uniforms. His spectacular career as a striker spans 18 years in great football clubs which includes PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona, Inter, Real Madrid and AC Milan, with the last 2 years spent with the Corinthians.

Ballon d'Or 2010: Lionel Messi Wins Prize For World's Best Player

In November of last year, I blogged about the Ballon d’Or or the Golden Ball when FIFA made the shortlist of nominations available. And though I wasn’t able to list down the 3 players nominated: Xavi, Messi and Iniesta all of FC Barcelona, here is the latest on the Ballon d’ Or.

Lionel Messi wins for 2^nd time in a row. He was the Ballon d’Or winner and the FIFA World Player of the Year last year when these awards were given separately, and he is again today. And as usual, the decision was controversial. First, footballers and fans alike were surprised when Wesley Sneijder was snubbed as a finalist, then Messi won again when he was in fact mediocre during the World Cup. According to the panel of judges, they chose Messi because of his astounding club form. Messi has spent the year scoring a goal per game and in the cases where he didn’t score he was able to provide or assist for the strikes.

On the other hand, the Spaniards have been really hoping either Xavi or Iniesta would win the Ballon d’Or for Spain, especially since they won the World Cup. In fact, this is the only award that any Spanish player has not received, even Raul has not received this Golden Ball despite the fact that Real Madrid has won the Champions League 9 times because of his efforts. But if you listen to Xavi speak about it the winner is actually FC Barcelona because all three finalists wear the same sportswear uniform. As Xavi himself said, the the FIFA Ballon d'Or is a triumph for the philosophy of Barcelona. He says the nomination of three Blaugrana players as finalists for the 2010 Ballon d'Or is a moment to savour. It is a testament of the Blaugrana’s philosophy that helped their football club have three finalist in the 2010 Ballon d’Or.

Let’s just hope that things might change with Real Madrid especially since Mourinho also won as Men’s Coach of the Year. If that award is really given to a deservicg player and coach, there is still hope for Real Madrid this year.

FIFA Ballon d’Or 2010 Contenders

FIFA and Ballon d’Or have recently merged and the world’s best player for 2010 will be awarded the FIFA Ballon d’Or. From here on, there will no longer be a FIFA World Player of the Year and a separate winner for France Football’s Ballon d’Or.

Ballon d’Or or The Golden Ball, often referred to as the European Footballer of the Year, is the annual award presented to the association football player who is considered to be the best performer for the previous calendar year. When it was started by the chief magazine writer of France Football in 1956, it only voted on European football players and journalists selected the winner. So Pele though considered to be one of the best football player was never considered for this award. It was only in 1995 when the rules were changed. Non-European players are eligible only if they are playing for European football clubs. In 2007, the rules were changed again to allow any player of any nationality and wearing any teamwear of any club around the world to be nominated. Of course, this move also increased the number of voting journalists from 52 European based journalists to 96 journalists from around the world.

On the other hand, the FIFA World Player of the year is also an association football award given annually to the best male and female player based on the votes of the coaches and captains of international teams.

Recently, FIFA announced the shortlist for the prestigious Ballon d’Or, World Coach of the Year and other awards which will be announced on January 10, 2011 in Zurich. As you might notice on the list below, it is dominated by those who shone in the recent FIFA 2010 World Cup. Most of the names come from the winner Spain and semi-finalists Germany and Netherlands.

The contenders are:

Xabi Alonso (Spain)		Dani Alves (Brazil)
Iker Casillas (Spain)		Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast)		Samuel Eto'o (Cameroon)
Cesc Fabregas (Spain)		Asamoah Gyan (Ghana)
Julio Cesar (Brazil)		Miroslav Klose (Germany)
Philipp Lahm (Germany)		Maicon (Brazil)
Thomas Mueller (Germany)		Arjen Robben (Netherlands)
Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany)		David Villa (Spain)
Xavi (Spain)		Carles Puyol (Spain)
Andres Iniesta (Spain)		Diego Forlan (Uruguay)
Lionel Messi (Argentina)		Mesut Oezil (Germany)
Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands)