2012 – The Year Spain Dominated World Football

This year’s Ballon D’Or saw Barcelona’s Leo Messi claim his 4th title as the world’s best player and all 11 players in the World 11 being Spanish-based players with 5 from Barca and 5 from Real Madrid.

Messi with his 4th Ballon D’Or

This has led to a huge deal of moaning from those in England who can’t deal with the fact that they no longer have the best league in the world. The truth is, La Liga is far superior to the EPL or any other league at this point in time.

As someone who watches both leagues every weekend its easy to see that La Liga now has the best players, and so I thought I’d outline my World 11 below, which evidently is really not that different from the official one.

Even as a Manchester United fan I don’t see Robin Van Persie as deserving a place in the team, with both Radamel Falcao and Zlatan Ibrahimovic being steps ahead of him.

As for Messi, there is absolutely no doubt he deserved to win the trophy, he’s been in a different class to everyone else in 2012 and may well be the greatest player of all time. I would have been delighted to see Iniesta, a player I love, get the trophy but any unbiased fan will tell you Messi deserved it.

Iniesta celebrating a goal for Barca

My World 11:

Buffon

Arbeloa – Pique – Ramos – Alba

Xavi – Alonso – Iniesta

Messi – Falcao – Ronaldo

 

As you can see, that’s still 10 La Liga!

Also, Sergio Busquets and Pepe are unlucky not to make the final team.

Dutch legend Ruud Van Nistelrooy retires from football

It was a milestone in my footballing life as my favourite player Ruud van Nistelrooy announced his immediate retirement today.

Ruud was the free scoring frontman in the Manchester United team when I first became properly obsessed by the club and has remained my footballing hero to this day despite his subsequent transfers to Real Madrid, Hamburg and most recently Malaga.

The deadly Dutchman once scored 44 goals in one season for United proving himself to be a contender for the most clinical marksman in world football.  He then went on to win the Golden Boot in Spain for Real in his first season, making many question the logic of United selling him. I personally was gutted when he left the club.

He hasn’t quite captured such form in latter years and has decided to bow on on top having helped Malaga secure 4th place in La Liga at the weekend. A true legend of modern day football and a player I’ll never forget.

All the best for whatever the future brings you Ruud.

 

 

End of an era as Pep Guardiola leaves Barcelona

Pep Guardiola has done an unbelievable job at Barcelona, making them undoubtedly the world’s greatest teams for several years. I would go as far as to say the Barcelona side of 2010-2011 is the best football team I’ve ever seen play. These thoughts were echoed by many in the game including the greatest football manager of all time Sir Alex Ferguson.

It’s a real shame that he felt the need to leave the Catalan institution last week, but in reality it’s a move that’s been on the cards for a long time. As far back as a year ago Pep was hinting he would leave Barca in the near future. Having suffered badly from stress since taking over the job Guardiola has endured severe hair loss and has commented he would be worried about his health if he carried on long-term. It always seemed possible he would leave this, or next summer, but it’s still caused a great deal of shock in the world of football.

Rumours are abound that he is set to join Chelsea, but this seems unlikely. Pep has said he wants to take time out of football. Maybe he will return one day, maybe he won’t. But I’m sure football fans the world over will wish him all the best in his time off, he’s given us endless treats to watch over the last few years.

It will be interesting to see how the new coach Tito Vilanova and the players deal with his departure next season and whether they can play to the same standards. Vilanova seems a natural choice for the job. He knows the players, he knows the style and I’m sure Guardiola supported his appointment.

 Guardiola will have one last chance to shine this season when Barca take on high flying Athletic Bilbao in the Copa del Rey final, sparks may fly!

Chelsea hit form at the right time

With the season winding down it looks like Chelsea have picked a good time to hit top form, with two cup finals impending in the Champion’s League and FA Cup.

The club have been undoubtedly dire at points this season but have recently dismissed Barcelona over two legs and today scored six with Spanish striker Fernando Torres grabbing a hat-trick against QPR, in a move to separate himself from Liverpool’s Andy Carroll. The pair have linked in the media due to their complete lack of form since moving to their current clubs.

Torres though appears to have turned a corner and could well have put himself on the path to actually carving out a respectable career at Chelsea. But we shall see, it’s early down in terms of that currently.

Meanwhile Carroll still shows no signs of quality. In fairness to him he’s not the only poor player at Liverpool with playing like Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing routinely going through matches without doing anything at all of note. At least Carroll jumps about a bit.

As for Chelsea, in the time they’re in you wouldn’t put it past them doing the double this season. It really does just enforce the fact that sacking AVB was precisely the right thing to do.

Chelsea must hold on to Di Matteo

Last night and last week’s performances by Chelsea against Barcelona have been horrible to watch but they’ve also been exactly the right thing to do. Playing against Barca with 10 men for over half of the match and managing to go through must mark last night down as one of the most impressive defensive performances I’ve ever seen in the Champions League.

Even without inspirational captain John Terry, who inexplicably kneed Alexis in the back of the leg off the ball Chelsea looked solid for the whole match, aside from their blip around JT getting sent off.

However, I don’t see Chelsea winning the competition this year. I’ve watched Real Madrid a lot this season and this are immense. I much prefer Barca personally but there’s no doubt the King’s team have reclaimed their crown of best team in Spain, and in my mind the world. That being said its far from set in stone that they’ll beat Bayern Munich tonight, so we’ll have to wait and see on that front.

Whoever they face though Chelsea will be without Terry, Ivanovic, Ramires and Meireles through suspensuion. Playing againt an attack force like Ronaldo – Benzema – Di Maria or Ribery – Gomez – Robben is a tough ask for most teams with their first choice defence and Chelsea will have to do it without their ideal centre-back pairing.

Then again, after last night’s performance I wouldn’t rule it out. With the powerhouse of Didier Drogba  up front and an incredible team effort in defence anything’s possible. Which loops me back to the point of this article: Chelsea must hold on to Di Matteo.

In a season where Andre Villas-Boas was having an utter horrorshow with Chelsea, Roberto Di Matteo has come in and rescued their season. Renewed form in the league and a Champions League final are more than enough to justify a new contract for the Voldemort-esque Italian. For an outside perspective it certainly appears the squad are happy with Di Matteo and the importance of that can’t be underestimated, as the Villas-Boas debacle has proved.

What I don’t buy into is the notion that Fernando Torres is the man who put Chelsea in the final, this is just the English media trying to stir up a story. For me, that takes the rightful glory away from Ramires who scored a sensational goal which won the tie for Barca regardless of Torres’ goal.

So to finish I thought I’d end with the ridiculous noise Gary Neville made when Torres rounded Victor Valdes. In his first season, despite being a great pundit, I’m afraid he’s possibly just created the commentary moment he’ll be most remembered for.