The "Ballon d'Or", often referred to as the European Footballer of the Year, is an annual association football award. It is presented each year to the player who has been considered to have performed the best over the previous year. The award was conceived by France Football's chief magazine writer Gabriel Hanot, who asked his colleagues to vote for the player of the year in Europe in 1956. The inaugural winner was Stanley Matthews of Blackpool.
The Manchester United winger was named as Kaka's successor (Kaka won it last year) in the early hours of Tuesday morning. On Sunday he was presented with the Ballon d'Or trophy, a golden ball, in a televised ceremony and admitted it was a dream come true.
''I'm very, very happy, It's a dream I've had since I was younger, I've always dreamed about winning it one day. I'm very moved, very happy and I'd like to take this opportunity to dedicate this trophy to my family, they've helped me get here. I thank my mother, my father ... my close friends. I had a whole list of people I wanted to thank but it's difficult, I can't remember as it's too emotional. The trophy is splendid, marvelous, very beautiful. I've waited for this.''
Of the 96 leading journalists polled, 77 voted Cristiano Ronaldo as their number one player this year and every one placed him in their top five after he scored 42 goals in Manchester United's Premier League and Champions League winning season. Ronaldo polled a massive 446 points from a maximum of 480, finishing comfortably ahead of second-placed Lionel Messi (281) and third-placed Fernando Torres (179) of Liverpool.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the first Manchester United player to win the award since George Best in 1968 in addition to Bobby Charlton in 1966 and Denis Law in 1964 have also won the award.
1 comment:
Great post! You explained what the trophy was all about, gave history on when and who was the first to get the trophy. Then you showed statistics with the rankings and the total points that Ronaldo achieved. You demonstrated why he deserved the trophy due to his outstanding season with Man U. And then the end was also great, you showed who had previously won the trophy from his team. The only thing is that I think you should state his name in the first paragraph.
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