Ronaldinho Named FIFPro World Player of the Year

By: Bob | November 6th, 2006

The award season is officially upon us. Today, Ronaldinho was named the FIFPro World Player of the Year for the second consecutive year. Unlike the Ballon d’or and FIFA World Player of the Year, the FIFPro prize is selected by the players themselves – in this case, the 43,000 or so players who were asked to vote. No word on how many actually did vote.

Was Ronaldinho really the best player in 2005-06?

He certainly had a great year for Barcelona, helping to lead the Spanish giants to a championship in La Liga and the Champions League. The story was quite different in the World Cup where he was essentially a non factor for Brazil. It is easy to understand why he was selected by his peers. He is a great player with a winning personality and benefits from the hype machine. But was he really the best last season? I would vote no, but my vote wasn’t solicited by FIFPro.

Here is a look at the World XI team as determined by players from around the world.

FIFPro World XI

Keeper – Gianluigi Buffon

Defenders – Fabio Cannavaro, Gianluca Zambrotta, Lilian Thuram, John Terry

Midfielders – Zinedine Zidane, Andrea Pirlo, Kaka

Forwards – Samuel Eto’o, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry

Your thoughts on this team?

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Category: World Football

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jaime77

rolandinho has done a grate job this year without eto'o
mesy,sabiola and other injury players by keeping barcelona in first place in laliga and he deserve to be the player of the year for what he does and is
jack

Zidane is the third best player ever, he should have won every individual trophy a player can get. zizou the best.
Lena~Ronnie

I thing Ronaldinho is the best football player in the world...and...GOLDEN BALL 2006 going to RONALDINHO...
Socca

To be honest, Ronaldinho is certainly one of the very best player for Barcelona in 2005-06 season until the UEFA Champions League final. In my opinion, he played horribly during that match.

Feel free to voice your opinions.

By Socca from SoccaCritics.com
Louise

I am SO tired of Ronaldihno. If he wins the two big awards this year... (Of course, the guy I'm backing, Cannavaro, probably has no chance because he's a defender, but still.)

Anyway, that defense is VERY interesting--it's Juventus for the previous two seasons except for Terry (I guess they don't vote by actual position--3 CBs?). The scandal didn't seem to affect how the players voted.
OmegaSupremho

Hmm would have to slap Deco in there meself.
Peter

Miro is absolutely right. Zidane's name is the one that sticks out on that team. Seems like it is more of a lifetime achievement thing than what he did last year excluding his excellent play against Brazil in the World Cup.
yaph

The case for or against Zidane is the complete opposite of that of Ronaldinho. Zidane had some good moments during the world cup but what did he achieve during the rest of the season? I think he was only voted in the team because he retired.