Tag Archives: Ballon d’Or

France Football have announced the list of 30 nominees for the Ballon d’Or 2016 to be held on January 9, 2017. FIFA have not yet announced their plans after discontinuing their six years of partnership with FFF. It is quite possible that the FIFA World Player of the Year award will be called back from retirement. Like the previous few ...

History of the Ballon d’Or The concept of awarding the best European player each year was started by the French magazine France Football, which first came up with the idea in 1956. The idea conceived by France Football editor Gabriel Hanot intended to give the Ballon d’Or to the best European player each year. The voting rights were exclusive to ...

Criteria The selection criteria for the Ballon d’Or is quite extensive. The award takes into consideration not a full European season that generally takes place between the period of August to May, but performances are judged from a November to November cycle, meaning that it effectively judges a player on the basis of their showing in parts of two seasons. ...

Lev Yashin The Soviet goalkeeper remains the only custodian to have won the Ballon d’Or. He earned the nickname of Black Panther for his quick reflexes and reach. Yashin was a member of the inaugural European Championship winning Soviet Union side. Franz Beckenbauer The man credited with the invention of the libero position was the first ever defender to win ...

Josef Masopust (1962) The Czechoslovakia midfielder won the 1962 Ballon d’Or after garnering 65 votes – 12 more than Benfica legend Eusebio and a further 32 more than 1. FC Koln’s Karl-Heinz Schnellinger. Masopust, a box-to-box midfielder, was the driving force behind Czechoslovakia’s run to the final of the 1962 World Cup; he also scored in the final against Brazil ...

Frank Lampard, Lampard, he’ll kick the ball fifty yards, he’s six foot and really hard, Frank Lampard, Lampard. 1978: Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest were at the peak of their powers in 1978 as they won their first and only league title that year. The following year Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor along with their men won two consecutive European ...

  Is Ballon d’Or an award for the best player on the planet? So what really is the criteria to compare a defender to a striker or even a goal keeper? Is scoring goals more important than saving them? Does it not make it a prize for being the most favorite player of the majority? A goal scorer or a ...