Cristiano Ronaldo deserved the Ballon d’Or, or European Footballer of the Year award, after polling 77 of the 96 votes.
A year or two back I suggested that Ronaldo, the stepover kid, should study a DVD of Kaka, the elegant Brazilian, and learn that less is sometimes more. That comment was cheeky and also misguided.
Cristiano’s football is the flashy, over-flowing football of abundance by a guy who showed us every type of goal among the 42 he scored last season. He is a winning gladiator who can’t be kicked out of a game.
Preposterous flicks, thunderous headers, paranormal free-kicks, shots with both feet, Cristiano Ronaldo’s wizardry won match after match after match after match and made Manchester United champions of England and Europe. The last time a Man United player won it was 40 years ago : George Best in 1968.
Yes, Messi is fantastic too, and more humble, but his awards will come soon.
On Tuesday I emailed France Football’s Philippe Auclair to ask if anybody had ever got more than 77 votes, and he phoned from Manchester later and said that Zidane got more in 1998.
Philippe said he had spent the day with Cristiano.
“How d’you get on with him?”
“A charming boy. Tomorrow I’m spending the day with Denis Law.”
“Tell him he was the reason I went to Manchester University !” I said.
Which is quite true : Denis Law was my first idol and I decided to go to Manchester to watch him play in the flesh. Interviewing Denis for the student newspaper changed my life. When I was at school in a small town I thought famous people were from another planet and exceptional in every way. I didn’t realise that most of them do one thing very well but are ordinary apart from that, so I was never in awe of anybody famous again.
Meeting Denis Law, and getting a lift back to the university from Pat Crerand, was great fun. I loved Pat as well and later met him several times in London when I became a journalist. After spending time with those Scottish footballers I realised that famous people were just blokes. Finding that out at the age of 20 was important to me.
Alas, I’ve only met six European Footballers of the Year.
Brian Glanville’s probably met all of them. Rob Hughes played against Stanley Matthews when he was a teenage full back with Leicester City. But Rob never talks about that and didn’t mention it in his obit of the legendary winger, which he wrote while sitting next to me at England v Argentina. It’s a funny old life as a football reporter. You have mates, enjoy some laughs, listen to managers, and don’t notice the monotony.
1956 – Stanley Matthews
1957 – Alfredo Di Stefano
1958 – Raymond Kopa
1959 – Alfredo Di Stefano
1960 – Luis Suarez
1961 – Omar Sivori
1962 – Josef Masopust
1963 – Lev Yashin
1964 – Denis Law : as above
1965 – Eusebio : we had lunch in Prague
1966 – Bobby Charlton : met briefly with Denis
1967 – Florian Albert
1968 – George Best : interview for Radio Times 1971
1969 – Gianni Rivera
1970 – Gerd Muller
1971 – Johan Cruyff : in 1992 after Barca beat Samp 1-0
1972 – Franz Beckenbauer
1973 – Johan Cruyff
1974 – Johan Cruyff
1975 – Oleg Blokhin
1976 – Franz Beckenbauer
1977 – Alan Simonsen
1978 – Kevin Keegan : many times
1979 – Kevin Keegan
1980 – Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
1981 – Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
1982 – Paolo Rossi
1983 – Michel Platini
1984 – Michel Platini
1985 – Michel Platini
1986 – Igor Belanov
1987 – Ruud Gullit
1988 – Marco Van Basten
1989 – Marco Van Basten
1990 – Lothar Matthaus
1991 – Jean-Pierre Papin
1992 – Marco Van Basten
1993 – Roberto Baggio
1994 – Hristo Stoichkov
1995 – George Weah
1996 – Matthias Sammer
1997 – Ronaldo
1998 – Zinedine Zidane
1999 – Rivaldo
2000 – Luis Figo
2001 – Michael Owen
2002 – Ronaldo
2003 – Pavel Nedved
2004 – Andrei Shevchenko
2005 – Ronaldinho
2006 – Fabio Cannavaro
2007 – Kaka
2008 – Cristiano Ronaldo
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