FIFA World Player of the Year Award (kind of) Shortlist

By: Bob | October 12th, 2006

The shortlist for the FIFA World Player of the Year award is out and, well, it isn’t exactly short. Thirty names are on the final list, which is a nice way of honoring the top players in the world, but it also kind of makes it hard to debate the merits of the various players since there are simply too many merits to discuss.

If past history is an indication of who will be handed the prize in Zurich on December 18, the selection likely will be someone who plays in Spain. La Liga players have won the prize five years in a row with Ronaldinho collecting the trophy the past two years.

A look at this year’s list shows that Chelsea is the club with the most players nominateed with six and the English Premiership is the league most represented with 12 players, followed by Serie A’s 8 and La Liga’s 6. It is also worth noting that no player on the list plays for a club team outside of Europe. In fact, no non-European based player has ever even made the shortlist. European bias? I think so.

As for my choice, I think Fabio Cannavaro is going to win the award. He was nothing short of amazing for most of the year and his play in the World Cup will give him the edge over Ronaldinho who will finish second.

Who is your top choice from the shortlist below?

Adriano (Inter Milan, Brazil), Michael Ballack (Chelsea, Germany), Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus, Italy), Fabio Cannavaro (Real Madrid, Italy), Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United, Portugal), Petr Cech (Chelsea, Czech Republic), Deco (Barcelona, Portugal), Didier Drogba (Chelsea, Ivory Coast), Michael Essien (Chelsea, Ghana), Samuel Eto’o (Barcelona, Cameroon), Luis Figo (Inter Milan, Portugal), Gennaro Gattuso (AC Milan, Italy), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool, England), Thierry Henry (Arsenal, France), Kaka (AC Milan, Brazil), Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen, Germany), Philippe Lahm (Bayern Munich, Germany), Frank Lampard (Chelsea, England), Jens Lehmann (Arsenal, Germany), Alessandro Nesta (AC Milan, Italy), Andrea Pirlo (AC Milan, Italy), Franck Ribery (Marseille, France), Juan Roman Riquelme (Villarreal, Argentina), Ronaldinho (Barcelona, Brazil), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United, England), Tomas Rosicky (Arsenal, Czech Republic), Andriy Shevchenko (Chelsea, Ukraine), Lilian Thuram (Barcelona, France), Patrick Vieira (Inter Milan, France), Zinedine Zidane (retired, France).