No Awards for You, Italians.

agreed gigi, although Cassano, Chiellini, de rossi are all in their mid twenties and higher, if they stand a chance they will need to step it up.

To be fair, De Rossi is not golden ball material. He is inconsistant, does not play for a european powerhouse, and doesnt have the best manners on the pitch.

Cassano doesn’t play for a european powerhouse. He could have won had he had the right head on his shoulders at Real Madrid.

Chiellini plays the wrong position. How many defenders win this award? Cannavaro? Unless italy come up with the same spread out scoring and win the world cup due to great defence without a prevailant goal scorer he wont win it.

Giovinco needs to leave Juventus first if he is going to stand a chance and play for a european powerhouse. He is currently a bench warmer for the likes of overrated amauri and an underperforming diego. Not to mention Del Piero, Camronesi, Trezeguet, Iaquinta are all ahead of him.

Totti would have won this award at least once had he gone to Madrid way back when.

It honestly seems this award is given out not to the best all around player, or one that contributes to his team the most… rather, to the guy who does the most stepovers.

The italian with the best chance of winning it in the forseeable future is Cassano. But again he needs to move teams. I reckon from what I’ve seen, after him it looks like Balotelli will be a likely winner in about 7 years, thats if he gets his act together and stops commiting those hanious fouls.
For those who think totti can win it still, your dreaming, he’s old, and very injury prone. And no matter what you DeRossi fanboys believe, Roma isnt going to win a european competition for awhile.

agreed Marco, in addition Italian Serie A teams need to pay attention to the Italian youth and make them play more football than warming up in the bench. Moreover, does Italy has a player like Messi or Ronaldo now? No but it could have one if Italian football keep on neglecting the talent of Giovinco, this kid has all the talent to be a world class player, he is short so what, Messi is short but do see the football he plays in Barcelona, in the other hand how can Italy develop a player like Giovinco while he sits in the bench rather playing in the pitch. Italian football and Italian coaches are all guilty for not allowing the young italian talents to explore and improve their skills. This year Azzurrini U-21 performed good and produced some promising players, also the Azzurrini that played U-20 World Cup recently in Egypt played good as well. These kids must be noticed or else Italian football will suffer.

How about marchisio? he’s developed into quite a player. Maybe in a year or two he’ll be ballon d’or material?

Barring a superb run in the CL as far as goals go, I don’t think so. He’s huge to Juventus, but he’s not gonna score Gerrard-style goals or be the absolute fulcrum of the team like Xavi

Posted from  United States

pazzini out for a month with a broken nose

Posted from  United States

the Ballon d’Or is a bullshit award

what do you expect from a prize given out by the French, the most predjudiced of all European nations and still sore loosers after their 2006 defeat to Italy. the fact that it is adjudicated by the press makes it even more meaningless since it is so easy to wow them with ball-tricks and step-overs.

fuck the B d’O and fuck France.

if Totti can even mak it to half the games he will outscore Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic and there is no question he is the epitome of a team player.

Yeah he really tracks back all the time on defense and works his ass off…

what do you expect from a prize given out by the French, the most predjudiced of all European nations and still sore loosers after their 2006 defeat to Italy.

Not that I entirely disagree, but how do you account for Fabio Cannavaro winning it 4 months after being them in the World Cup?

and you can all thank lippi our BRILLIANT national team coach for this

what a slap in the face especially considering how not one of those players on that list have even won the world cup, what a fucking disgrace.

I dont think any Italians should win but at least some should be on the list.
Is De Rossi golden ball material, no, not this year anyways but he is the second best defensive midfielder in the world. The same can be said for Chiellini, by no means should he win this but he is to most people a world class center back. I mean with the exception of 3-4 backs theres no one I would take over Giorgio. Buffon i can understand being snubbed because of the injury riddled year he had last year. If he keeps up this form he will make it next year. As for the future, Giovinco, Rossi, and Balotelli come to mind for the Ballon d’Or if they are trained right. And seeing that Serie A and Italian coaches in general are treating young players awfully I feel they will be out of luck. Marco Motta and Davide Santon also have a chance but they have a whole lot of maturing to do.

Posted from  United States

How is our national coach to blame for this? All these awards are for good league performances, and Champion’s League.

I have no idea how some of you honestly think that any player whose position is remotely defensive has a chance at winning this award. This award is 9/10 times given to the flashiest, goal scoring forward or offensive midfield. Totti has been considered for this award a number of times, however, he’s failed to win it due to the fact roma has never won a champions league.

Ironically, only during world cup years will the golden ball be given to a world cup winning player. The rest of the time it’s given to the top player from a CL winning team. This year messi will win it, just like last year ronaldo won it, and the year before Kaka. During the 2006 world cup, no matter how cannavaro played, do you honestly think that had totti scored 4 goals, or even luca toni for that matter netted the most goals that they would not have won the golden ball? Heck, I would even go as far as to argue that Cannavaro only won the golden ball because zidane won the golden ball of the tournament. Had cannavaro or any other italian won that, then i reckon zidane would have won the uefa golden ball in december 2006.

There’s a lot of politics involved with this award like most others in football. The sad thing is is that uefa does not reward a player who makes the biggest contribution to the team – i.e. Totti at roma a couple years ago, or nedved at juventus, or cassano at samp – they simply reward those who win the CL which makes this award pretty bleak and useless if you ask me. For instance, while at Palermo, Luca toni scored 30 goals. Yet he didn’t win the award.

As I’ve said before the only players that will have a chance in the near future at winning this award are Giovinco, Cassano and Balotelli. Balotelli is my odds on favourite to win this in a number of years.

Unless Cassano plays in CL and for Inter/Milan/Juve/Roma/Viola he will never win it. PERIOD !

i think its better italy don’t win the WC,this will ensure changes,and calcio will be great again

Posted from  Malaysia

italia2006, I would actually say that unless cassano plays for Inter/RM/ManchesterU/Barca/Chelsea he won’t win it. Not to burst that bubble but with the way Juve/Milan are being run I don’t think those teams are capable of winning anything in the near future and Roma are in financial ruins with their current owners to ever really compete again. The viola lack depth and capital to pose a strong threat, sure they beat liverpool but as the season wears on playing in too competitions will wear on a thin bench.

with that being said, there was a rumour that Napoli is in the market for Cassano. I think this would be an awsome fit considering some of the big plans currently being created at Napoli. This team could yet become a new European powerhouse.

@ the troll, kaka has won a world cup

Edited- Julian

Posted from  Spain

Edited- Julian

Posted from  United States

Edited- Julian

Posted from  Spain

worldcupblog ~ This be about time. Why no blacklist offensive person who also hate African/Black people?

Individual awards are nice but not the measure of a soccer nation.

TEAMS THAT WIN ARE.

I’d rather win multiple world cups with no players winning trophies than vice-versa.

That being said, I don’t know, but Italy has done pretty well with the Ballon d’Or.

Italians clubs are the most represented of any league. And Italian players won it five times; equal to Brazil and England. Only Germany and Holland (7) and France (6) have done (marginally) better.

For whatever that’s worth. It’s nice but shouldn’t be over rated either.

All that matters is: Four world cups and six finals.

Posted from  Canada

Something interesting I found: These r the winners of the u-21 european championships who also won the World Cup in Germany ‘06

Amelia, Gilardino, De Rossi, Zaccardo, Barzagli in 2004

Pirlo, Gattuso, Abbiati, Perrotta in 2000

Del Piero(again), Nesta, Totti, Buffon in 1996

Del Piero, Cannavaro, Inzaghi in 1994

Looks like to me by just looking at these stats that a world cup was due to Italy eventually, after all these u-21 champss winning for their respective teams

Italy hasn’t won the uefa u-21 european championships since 2004, and all you youth lovers calling for Lippi to call these new guys like Motta, Giovinco, Balotelli, etc. well they haven’t won anything for their u-21 teams respectively.

I’m not sayin that if you have won u-21 u will def win the world cup im just sayin that history tends to repeat itself and if winning happens when ur young it more often then not happens when ur in ur prime or later on as well.

“Sounds like ideal World Cup conditions for us, then.” – HAHAHAHAH! that is probably the best thing i have read all day.

Posted from  Canada