Spanish Rumors: Ronaldinho to be named 2006 FIFA World Player of the Year

The whole point of this thing called the Internet seems to be to spread rumors around and hope that some of them stick. We are happy to be a cog in this rumor mongering machine and happy to give Ronaldinho something to read in between amazing goals. We saw the rumors that said Fabio Cannavaro would win the Ballon d’Or start to spread a couple of weeks before he was presented with the Golden Ball. The rumors have not been as fast and as furious regarding who will win the 2006 FIFA World Player of the Year award, but now that we are less than a week away from the December 18 gala in Switzerland that is about the change.

According to speculation in Spain, some dude named Ronaldinho who plays for Brazil and Barcelona will get to kiss Sepp Blatter on the cheek and accept the award on behalf of his parents, friends, girlfriend and teammates. This really wouldn’t come as a huge surprise since Cannavaro won the other award and Zinedine Zidane’s appearance on the final shortlist is more attributable to his play over a long career and not based on his play last year. It also wouldn’t a surprise since Ronaldinho has won the award the past two years and because the winner is selected by the captains and coaches of the 207 or so national teams and since he is a wonderful player with a personality that is hard to dislike he happens to be pretty popular among his peers.

What also wouldn’t be a surprise is if this rumor doesn’t come true and if one of the other two finalists walks away with the hardware and this thing called the Internet is wrong once again.

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Category: World Football