Ronaldo: “I’m
very happy. It’s very difficult to win this award. Thank you to everybody who
has been involved.”
Cristiano
Ronaldo has been
named the 2013 Ballon d’Or winner by FIFA ahead of Lionel Messi and Franck
Ribery.
A bumper year
for Ronaldo saw him scoop football’s most prestigious individual award at
FIFA’s gala evening in Zurich. The Real Madrid winger was heavy favourite prior
to the announcement on Monday, having scored 66 goals in 56 games for club and
country throughout the year as well as sealing 2014 World Cup qualification for
Portugal by scoring a brilliant hat-trick against Sweden in their play-off
match.
Messi missed the
last six weeks of the year through injury but had scored 42 goals in 45
appearances for Barcelona and Argentina as well as winning La Liga and the Copa
del Rey. Ribery enjoyed a treble-winning season with Bayern Munich, completing
the Bundesliga, German Cup and Champions League trio and also helped France
qualify for the World Cup.
Pele, who opened
the golden envelope to announce Ronaldo as World Player of the Year, earlier
won the first ever Ballon d’Or Prix d’Honneur award.
Elsewhere,
Former Bayern boss Jupp Heynckes was presented with the Coach
of the Year award by England manager Roy Hodgson, beating Jurgen Klopp and Sir
Alex Ferguson to the trophy. Heynckes guided Bayern to a 2013 treble including
Champions League triumph over rivals Borussia Dortmund.
All three Ballon
d’Or nominees were included in the FIFPRO World XI, otherwise known
as the team of the year. No Premier League players featured for the second
successive year, but the Bundesliga and Ligue One had players included for the
first time in the award’s history.
The team was
made up of Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich and Germany) as goalkeeper while Dani
Alves (Barcelona and Brazil), Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich and Germany), Thiago
Silva (Paris Saint-Germain and Brazil) and Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid and Spain)
made up the defence.
Xavi (Barcelona
and Spain), Andres Iniesta (Barcelona and Spain) and Ribery (Bayern Munich and
France) were named in midfield with Ronaldo (Real Madrid and Portugal), Zlatan
Ibrahimovic (Paris Saint-Germain and Sweden) and Messi (Barcelona and
Argentina) completing the line-up.
Elsewhere,
former International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge picked
up the Presidential Award, while Germany coach Silvia Neid was named Women’s
Coach of the Year.
Ibrahimovic collected the Ferenc Puskas award – given to the
player who scored the best goal of 2013 – for his 40-yard overhead kick against
England. Afghanistan was given the Fair Play award and Germany
goalkeeper Nadine Angerer was named Women’s World Player of
the Year.
well deserved,
can’t remember seeing a more complete player and a freak of an athlete in any
other sport.. well done CR7..
Source: 247nigerianewsupdate.com