Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Love him or loathe him, Ronaldo is a worthy winner

It’s not about the fame, the strutting in front of cameras or the unveiling of a statue to a living legend. Some people succumb to intoxication at the celebrity aura surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo when they should really be celebrating a technical marvel, a formidable athlete, a relentless goal machine, a Champions League winner, a player who thrills audiences and was a truly worthy recipient of the Ballon d’Or in Zurich on Monday.

Ronaldo with the 2014 Ballon d’Or trophy he received on Monday. He played a pivotal role in Real Madrid clinching their 10th Champions League title last season. Photo: Getty Images

Ronaldo with the 2014 Ballon d’Or trophy he received on Monday. He played a pivotal role in Real Madrid clinching their 10th Champions League title last season. Photo: Getty Images

It’s not about the fame, the strutting in front of cameras or the unveiling of a statue to a living legend. Some people succumb to intoxication at the celebrity aura surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo when they should really be celebrating a technical marvel, a formidable athlete, a relentless goal machine, a Champions League winner, a player who thrills audiences and was a truly worthy recipient of the Ballon d’Or in Zurich on Monday.

Forget the red carpet. Ronaldo delivers on the greensward. He certainly received this judge’s vote.

For the 173 journalists, 184 national coaches and 184 national team captains, the initial Ballon d’Or long-list of 23 presented plenty of exceptional candidates to consider in an epic World Cup and Champions League year. These ranged from, among others, Manuel Neuer to Phillip Lahm, Lionel Messi to Angel Di Maria, Thomas Muller to Arjen Robben as well as Ronaldo, the holder.

Criteria vary among individual judges. For this correspondent, the game is about beauty, about expressing natural or nurtured gifts but, with due apologies to the purists, football is also about winning, about the muck-and-nettles pursuit of medals. Let’s not tip-toe around this: Finishing runners-up is simply bridesmaid or best-man country, close to joy but not close enough.

Messi inevitably invaded deliberations. He’s one of the greats, a player probably ranking among the top five of all time, just below the summit occupied by Pele and Diego Maradona. The brutal fact for Messi’s many admirers is that this has been a “nearly” year for Barcelona’s sublime Argentine.

Even if not at his optimum in 2014, Messi still managed 58 goals in 66 games, providing 21 assists, and shredding the scoring sections of La Liga and Champions League record books. Messi did not, however, grasp one of the major honours, the Champions League, domestic league or World Cup, although he went close in Rio last July.

Any sanguine analysis of the 2014 Ballon d’Or ultimately leads to a comparison of the merits of Real Madrid’s Ronaldo and Bayern Munich’s Neuer, who won the Bundesliga and reinvented the art of goalkeeping as Germany deservedly lifted the World Cup ahead of Messi’s Argentina at Maracana. Neuer was nine-tenths Sepp Maier to one-tenth Franz Beckenbauer.

But it had to be Ronaldo. Even for gnarled press-box inhabitants, there was a quickening of movement towards grounds graced by the Portuguese attacker in 2014.

Onlookers felt this appreciation of history in the making, of a privilege of seeing a serial match-winner at his most irresistible. Ronaldo recorded 61 goals in 60 games, and created 22 goals for others, not a bad show of team-mindedness for a player perceived as selfish.

A legitimate debate can be held about Ronaldo’s exact contribution to the 2014 Champions League final itself, when the interventions of Di Maria and Sergio Ramos arguably had more of an impact for Real in Lisbon, but he still scored, and he certainly helped drive his team towards that climax with Atletico Madrid, that date with La Decima destiny.

In scoring 17 times in last season’s Champions League, Ronaldo bestrode Europe. Nobody has netted as many in a European season, not Messi, not Jose Altafini. Ronaldo embodied and powered Real’s pursuit of La Decima.

Later that summer, in Brazil, Ronaldo struggled with tendinitis, although he raised himself against the United States in that memorable 2-2 draw and then found the mark against Ghana, but Portugal failed to escape a group dominated by Neuer’s Germany.

Before Ronaldo was presented with his deserved Ballon d’Or in Zurich on Monday, intrigue pervaded the build-up.

Some critics claimed voters were extensively lobbied by those promoting certain players, yet the sceptics were perhaps simply swayed by the event’s FIFA branding.

Sepp Blatter’s lot merged their World Player of the Year award in 2010 with the august, historic, journalist-driven France Football Ballon d’Or. This is probably the one night in the year when FIFA is guaranteed some good publicity.

Some cynics suggested that FIFA sought to influence the poll by releasing interviews with the likes of Andrei Shevchenko, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Alessandro del Piero and Javier Zanetti, promoting certain candidates, but these all occurred only after the voting date.

Fortunately there was no questionable moving of the goalposts as in 2013, when the vote was somehow delayed to absorb the drama of Portugal’s World Cup playoff against Sweden in Stockholm when Ronaldo stood out, so scuppering the hopes of Messi and Franck Ribery.

 

Henry Winter is the Daily Telegraph’s football correspondent.

 

AWARD WINNERS:

FIFA Ballon d’Or: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)

FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year: Nadine Kessler (Germany)

Men’s World Coach of the Year: Joachim Low (Germany)

Women’s World Coach of the Year: Ralf Kellerman (Germany)

Presidential Award: Hiroshi Kagawa (Japan)

Fair Play Award: All volunteers at FIFA competitions

Puskas Award (Best Goal): James Rodriguez (Colombia)

FIFA FIFPro World XI: Manuel Neuer; Sergio Ramos, Thiago Silva, David Luiz, Philipp Lahm; Andres Iniesta, Toni Kroos, Angel di Maria; Arjen Robben, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.