Ronaldinho the match-turner can eclipse Henry and Shevchenko
Kevin McCarra
Tuesday November 30, 2004
The Guardian
Real Madrid can no longer count on the world footballer of the year award as their emergency trophy. If there is to be silverware at the Bernabéu this season the side will have to concentrate on beating the opposition a lot more frequently. The pre-eminent player on the planet was to be found on their payroll from 2001 until 2003 but the club could not even get a candidate on to the three-man shortlist that was announced yesterday.
It is Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho and Andriy Shevchenko who will fidget at the ceremony in the Zurich Opera House on December 20. The votes are cast mostly by the coaches and captains of national teams throughout the world, but wherever they happen to live the sports schedule on local television will not differ all that much.
As well as being outstanding performers, the nominees for the Fifa prize work in the three most marketable leagues on earth and that is a weighty advantage. If there were anyone in the Bundesliga or Argentina's Apertura League who fizzed with as much talent as that trio, it is unlikely that we would be as aware of him. Despite being a World Cup winner, Ronaldinho would be nowhere near as glamorous if he had wrong-footed everyone's expectations and stuck with Paris Saint-Germain.
Glossy television production has been particularly important in projecting these figures into our minds in 2004. Though they can all recount some achievements, none had an extraordinary season.
It was futile to look for virtuosity in the principal tournaments. Henry was as ineffective as anyone else in the shamefully perfunctory France side at Euro 2004, and Theo Zagorakis, the player of the tournament who successfully argued his way out of a couple of failed drugs tests in 2001, was never going to be welcome in the Fifa pantheon.
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There was no role at all for Shevchenko in Portugal since Ukraine were not good enough to qualify. Brazil did take the Copa America this year, but it was an experimental squad that got past Argentina in the final and Carlos Alberto Parreira excused senior players such as Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Ronaldinho from taking part.
The Fifa shortlist members were not even to the fore in European competition. Arsenal and Milan both went out of the Champions League at the quarter-final stage, dragging Henry and Shevchenko away with them. The luminous Ronaldinho was extinguished earlier still as Barcelona were eliminated in the last 16 of the Uefa Cup. The Brazilian, all the same, is likely to be acclaimed next month.
He has loaned his zest to the Camp Nou, giving the team vibrancy and sparkling results to go with it. Despite the playboy traits, Ronaldinho is known for the fanaticism with which he plans and perfects each new trick in a seemingly limitless repertoire. Few men have ever manipulated a football so well and he also has the uncommon knack of putting technical virtuosity to the sort of practical use that changes the nature of a match. It helps his case, too, that so many of the electors are bound to be suckers for the romance of Barcelona.
Should the misadventure of Euro 2004 be tactfully overlooked, however, a case for Henry being honoured in Zurich can be made. Arsenal were behind to Liverpool at home in April and had it not been for his determined hat-trick that afternoon the Highbury club might well have meandered fatally off course in their journey to the title. Henry's character then was as unmistakable as his ability.
The Frenchman was runner-up a year ago so there is only a very small piece of ground for the swift striker to make up in order to become world footballer of the year this time. Until now, too, Premiership stars have never got any further than the shortlist and delivery of the honour to these shores is arguably overdue.
None the less, it would be pleasing to see Shevchenko triumph. Last season he scored 24 Serie A goals in a single campaign for the third time. In 2003, his strike put Internazionale out in the last four of the Champions League and he went on to slot home the winning penalty in the shoot-out with Juventus in the final.
He is one of those rare attackers whose abilities are heightened in the penalty area and he is so much the specialist predator that, as a boy, he was even rejected by a sports institute because his dribbling was not up to much.
There is no melodrama to him and despite interest from Chelsea he briskly extended his contract at Milan until 2009. He protests that he does not want anyone to make a fuss of him. Unfortunately and unfairly, those who pick the world footballer of the year may take Shevchenko at his word and leave him in seclusion.
Previous winners
1991 Lothar Matthäus
1992 Marco van Basten
1993 Roberto Baggio
1994 Romario
1995 George Weah
1996 Ronaldo
1997 Ronaldo
1998 Zinédine Zidane
1999 Rivaldo
2000 Zinédine Zidane
2001 Luis Figo
2002 Ronaldo
2003 Zinédine Zidane
Who will be the player of the year?
