Ronnie looks to set a new record with FIFA prize
CRISTIANO Ronaldo could claim a record sixth FIFA men’s player of the year prize after Lionel Messi was omitted from the shortlist for the first time since 2006.
Ronaldo and Messi have both won the prize five times, but the Barcelona and Argentina forward was overlooked on this occasion, with Luka Modric and Mohamed Salah in contention.
Barcelona and Argentina forward Messi had featured in the top three for 11 straight years. He was runner-up in 2007 and 2008 before winning the title for the first of five years in 2009.
The shortlists were announced by football’s world governing body yesterday and the award ceremony is scheduled to take place on September 24 at Royal Festival Hall in London.
Messi’s subsequent wins came in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2015, while Ronaldo won the title in 2008, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017.
The award was first introduced as the FIFA World player of the year prize (1991-2009), before becoming the Ballon d’Or (201015) and subsequently part of FIFA’s ‘The Best’ awards.
Ronaldo won a third successive Champions League title with Real Madrid in 2017-18, finishing as top scorer in the competition and had Modric as a team-mate. The Portuguese moved to Juventus in the summer after nine years in Madrid.
There is some consolation for Messi as his Russia 2018 goal against Nigeria makes the list of 10 nominees for the Puskas Award for best goal.
Ronaldo also features, for his overhead kick for Real against new team Juventus.
Wales forward Gareth Bale’s acrobatic effort for Real in the Champions League final is another on the list.
Three more World Cup goals feature – Denis Cheryshev for Russia v Croatia, Benjamin Pavard, for France v Argentina and Ricardo Quaresma for Portugal v Iran.
Salah’s strike in last December’s Merseyside derby also makes the shortlist.
Norway and Lyon’s Ada Hegenrberg, Dzsenifer Marozsan, of Germany and Lyon, and Marta, of Brazil and Orlando Pride, have been shortlisted for the women’s prize. Marta has won it on five occasions. THE television producers were so focused on Jose Mourinho at Old Trafford last week they missed Ed Woodward’s own gesture from the directors’ box.
As Mourinho applauded those remaining in the Stretford End, Woodward pointed at the mutual respect approvingly as defeat brought manager and supporters closer together.
At Burnley, the cameras scanned for Woodward again in the directors’ box but only clocked his predecessor David Gill. Irrespective of whether Woodward was there or not on a day some fans turned against him, he will have approved of the full-time bond between manager and supporters at Turf Moor.
The great thing about Burnley’s ground is staff and players have to pass the away stand before and after the game.
It is a stretch that can feel like a walk to the gallows or a royal engagement. Sir Alex Ferguson regally strode out for a December 2002 League Cup tie by shaking hands with some United supporters and Mourinho evoked memories of that as he approached what was formerly known as the Cricket Field Stand.
A triumphant Mourinho clenched his fist, punctured the air and clapped the supporters before he hurdled the advertising hoardings and handed his jacket to a delighted 12-year-old.
Some reached out to brush Mourinho’s hair or graze his face, as if he was a Messianic figure before them.
In two years, three months and six days, the unison between United manager and matchgoers had never been stronger.
Burnley had the makings of a belting away day. The anti-Woodward plane banner protest – which was applauded by most Reds during its multiple flyovers – and the Tottenham defeat had reinforced the connection between Mourinho and those who click through the turnstiles at Old Trafford and around the country and continent.
The majority of the top tweets in reply to the club account last week were along the lines of ‘#Mourinhoout’ or ‘sack Mourinho,’ as if Woodward – who refused to a duel with Daniel Levy over Anthony Martial and Toby Alderweireld – would extract a manager whose contract expires in 2023.
Zinedine Zidane is the Football Manager crowd’s panacea but in the real world he would not inherit a ready-made squad at a club he has visited six times.
For the United fans clutching bottles of Corona on Belvedere Road asking for spare tickets, Mauricio Pochettino and Zidane are irrelevant. Even in that winter of discontent under Louis van Gaal in 2015, some in the Stretford End second tier found the presence of Mourinho scarves on the forecourt so abhorrent they chanted ‘f*** off Mourinho.’ Their patience eventually, and understandably, snapped with Van Gaal but the majority were supportive until he was driven out of Carrington two days after the FA Cup final.
Amid a period where Mourinho’s power has eroded, he regained a measure of it as the ‘football people’ formed their own coalition at Burnley. ‘Mourinho’s Red and White Army’ was hollered as he hovered in the tunnel during the warmups and as he emerged for kick-off. The game started and ended with that chant, which Scott McTominay’s father thumped along to in an away end that turned it up to 11.
A cricket match was taking place behind the stand United fans were housed in and batsmen’s concentration might have been compromised by the bellowing 2,433 United fans. ‘U-N-I-T-E-D,’ ‘Pride of all Europe,’ ‘Who the f*** are Man United?’ were among the classics aired as normality returned in the 2-0 win but, perhaps most tellingly, the Mourinho ditty ‘Something tells me I’m into something good’ was shouted en masse.
It has hardly been heard this calendar year.
Mourinho repeatedly applauded and thanked United fans for chanting his name repetitively, Joe Hart was heckled with ‘City reject’ – sarcastically adopted by Burnley fans following his penalty save – and there were odes to Roy Keane, Jaap Stam, Andy Cole, Ruud van Nistel- Jose Mourinho