Awards and Honors: The Ballon d’Or Shortlist Is Out

Its that time of year ladies and gentlemen. FIFA has released the Ballon d’Or shortlist. It will be cut down to just three finalists in December but until then we have this list of 10 players to keep us occupied. Also announced was the shortlist for Coach of the Year. Here’s some of the things I found most interesting from the lists.

Is There A Defender In The House?

FIFA once again didn’t select a single defender to the shortlist for this year.  At this point it’s not even surprising.  The closest player to playing defense is German goalkeeper Nadine Angerer is a finalist this year after her incredible play at this summer’s EUROs in Sweden, which Germany won for the eighth time in a row.  This is the third year in a row a keeper has been named to the list, Fukumoto last year and Solo the year before, which is nice to see.  But I think we can all agree that defenders deserve much more credit than FIFA is willing to give.

The American Contigent

After having four USWNT players on last year’s list the US only has two this year.  The dynamic forward duo, Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan.  Another American made the coach of the year shortlist, and it was Cindy Parlow-Cone of the NWSL champions the Portland Thorns. Honestly, I’m shocked that Parlow-Cone is on this list.  Interesting that the NWSL named a coach other than Parlow-Cone as coach of the year only for FIFA to say she’s one of the best in the world.

The EURO Effect

This was a EURO year for women’s soccer, and as expected the coach of the year category is flooded with international coaches that made an impact with their squad this summer.  In the player shortlist however, its not as EURO player heavy as I expected.  Of the 10, only four of them played for a team that was in this summer’s EUROs.  Thats definitely the minority.  Between the four players only two different teams are represented, the champions Germany, and host Sweden.

Big Names But Not The Best Names

In a move so “FIFA” that it hurts, it seems that the committee went for the names with recognition value as opposed to the names that deserve recognition. This is especially apparent in the shortlist for coach of the year. Two names that really shouldn’t be on the list include Cindy Parlow-Cone, as I hit on earlier, and Arsenal Ladies head coach Shelley Kerr. After coming in to replace Laura Harvey, who left for the Seattle Reign, Kerr lead Arsenal to a rather unremarkable season in the FAWSL, finishing third and putting their UWCL lives on the line. Perhaps a better replacement would be Liverpool ladies head coach Matt Beard who lead the club to the FAWSL title this year.

And The Winner Is…

First things first let’s cut down the shortlist of 10 players down to the three finalists. I have to go with German goalkeeper Nadine Angerer, Swedish forward Lotta Schelin, and American Abby Wambach. Angerer had an amazing EUROs, keeping an injury riddled Germany in many games, and helping them secure their 8th straight title. Schelin had a solid EUROs, winning the silver boot. But she’s also been incredibly good with her dominant club squad Olympique Lyonnais. Finally, Wambach broke Hamm’s record for most goals and is continuing to add onto the total.

Of those three the winner is hard to pick but I think it comes down to Angerer vs Wambach. In the end I have to give the award to Angerer simply because I feel that in a EURO year a EURO player should win. Not to knock on Abby’s year thus far, but she’s played on a far less competitive level internationally than Angerer has.

Awards and Honors: Wambach Named FIFA Women’s Player Of The Year

All the drama and anticipation of the FIFA Ballon d’Or gala is finally over.  Despite the ridiculous shunning of Christine Sinclair from an award that was arguably hers, a still deserving candidate was selected today in Abby Wambach.  Now all that Wambach is missing from her trophy case is a WWC title.  Wambach will have the opportunity for an amazing narrative heading into Canada in 2015.  Should the USWNT add another star to the jersey in Canada, Wambach could end her career having done it all, just as her mentor, Mia Hamm, did with her career.

An Elite Club: Wambach is only the second American to win the award, and is the first non-consecutive winner.

The final standings for the women’s Ballon d’Or were: 1. Abby Wambach (USA)  2. Marta (BRA) 3. Alex Morgan (USA) 4. Homare Sawa (JPN) 5. Christine Sinclair (CAN) 6. Carli Lloyd (USA) 7. Camille Abily (FRA) 8. Aya Miyama (JPN) 9. Miho Fukumoto (JPN) 10. Megan Rapinoe (USA)

Of course, to win the award Wambach had to receive the highest percent of total votes.  Votes come from three main groups: national team captains, national team coaches, and media members.  Each country with a FIFA team gets one vote per group.  An interesting note is that many of these teams know little of the players they are voting for, except for name recognition.  This leads to an astonishing breakdown* of votes within the groups and overall.

Captains’ Votes:

Abby Wambach lead the captain’s votes, as well as all other groups, with a total of 5.68 percent.  Second place here went to Marta. This may seem surprising as Alex Morgan was considered the favorite to win the award.  Even more surprising is that Morgan didn’t even finish third in the Captains votes.  That place went to last year’s winner Homare Sawa.

To explain this its important to look at the countries Marta and Sawa are receiving votes from.  Among others, Marta recieved votes from Albania, Comoros, Suriname, and Tajikistan. Sawa recieved votes from countries such as Vanuatu, Kyrgyzstan, and Mauritius.  To say that those votes were not recieved simply because of name recognition, or in the case of Sawa, carry over from the last year, would be insane.

Also interesting are the ballots of each candidates’ home country captain.  US captain Christie Rampone voted Alex Morgan number one, and filled out the rest of her ballot with US team members Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe.  Japan captain and candidate Aya Miyama did the same, voting for team members Homare Sawa and Miho Fukumoto.  In the case of Christine Sinclair and Marta, they were both their country’s captain and lone candidate, neither one voted for their self.

Coaches’ Votes:

When comparing the coaches’ votes to the captains’ votes I expected to find a decent amount of continuity in vote percentages.  However, while 1st, 2nd, and 3rd were the same combination of Wambach, Marta, and Sawa, Alex Morgan drops to 5th in the coaches percent totals.  4th astonishingly goes to Japanese goalkeeper Miho Fukumoto, who placed no better than 7th in the other two polls.

Coaches also didn’t vote for their players which was seen in the captain’s polls.  With the exception of Canada’s John Herdman and USA’s Jill Ellis, no other coach gave one of their players a first place vote.

Another drop in the coaches polls was Christine Sinclair.  While she placed 5th in the captains’ vote, Sinclair fell to 7th in the coaches, the lowest she placed in any of the polls.

Media Votes:

The media poll is where thing really get interesting.  Abby Wambach totaled her highest vote percentage in this category with 8.06 percent, but the second place finished in the group was not Marta or Sawa.  Second place went to the USA’s Carli Lloyd, who had 4.63 percent of the votes.  Alex Morgan and Christine Sinclair tied for 3rd in the group with 4.17 percent.

Looking at all the vote totals it seems that there is really no consistency within the countries when it comes to their votes, or even consistency within the groups themselves.  This relates back to the issue of name recognition.  I question whether Christine Sinclair would have won even if FIFA hadn’t snuffed her out of a chance.

Overall, the Ballon d’Or went to a more than deserving candidate.  However, I do hope that in the future, voters for the award are more knowledgable of the candidates.  I’m not sure this job falls to FIFA, but rather to the voters themselves.  I think the issue of basing the vote off of name recognition has contributed to the repetitive nature of the award.  As I stated earlier, this year marks the first time there has not been a repeat winner of the women’s Ballon d’Or.  Perhaps Wambach can put up another impressive performance and get the streak back on track, but until then there is lots of soccer to be played.

*Vote percentage breakdown can be found here: http://www.fifa.com/ballondor/live/index.html?intcmp=newsreader_news_box_1