Ballon d'Or 2009 (6 Barça players + 24)

Nominees announced today by France Football:

1. Andrey Arshavin (Arsenal & Russia)

2. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid & France)

3. Iker Casillas (Real Madrid & Spain)

4. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid & Portugal)

5. Diego Ribas da Cunha (Juventus & Brazil)

6. Didier Drogba (Chelsea & Ivory Coast)

7. Edin Džeko (Wolfsburg & Bosnia and Herzegovina)

8. Samuel Eto'o (Inter Milan & Cameroon)

9. Cesc Fàbregas (Arsenal & Spain)

10. Fernando Torres (Liverpool & Spain)

11. Diego Forlán (Atletico Madrid & Uruguay)

12. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool & England)

13. Ryan Giggs (Manchester United & Wales)

14. Yoann Gourcuff (Bordeaux & France)

15. Thierry Henry (Barcelona & France)

16. Zlatan Ibrahimović (Barcelona & Sweden)

17. Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona & Spain)

18. Júlio César (Inter Milan & Brazil)

19. Kaká (Real Madrid & Brazil)

20. Frank Lampard (Chelsea & England)

21. Maicon (Inter Milan & Brazil)

22. Lionel Messi (Barcelona & Argentina)

23. Luís Fabiano (Sevilla & Brazil)

24. Franck Ribéry (Bayern Munich & France)

25. Wayne Rooney (Manchester United & England)

26. John Terry (Chelsea & England)

27. Nemanja Vidić (Manchester United & Serbia)

28. David Villa (Valencia & Spain)

29. Xavi (Barcelona & Spain)

30. Yaya Touré (Barcelona & Ivory Coast)


So...who do you think is missing,who will win who should win etc.

Discuss

Pique is missing! Messi should win! Messi will win!

1. Messi
2. Iniesta
3. Xavi

Ole!

Messi, obviously.

haha, wtf is doing yaya in and someone like piqué, alves or valdés out?? aswell anelka (epl top scorer) for benzema (nobody)

Barcelona will be in top three.

Or at least, in two, and Messi will win it, eazie.

Nice, six Spanish players. I remember not too long ago when they had to put Raul in there for the Spanish representation. Looks like the list this year isn't as controversial as in the past.

30 places for such a good season for so many players is a small number...

Messi probably. I think everybody agrees he's the best player in the world right now.

definitely Messi & Xavi for the first two spots, 3rd is the only one where there's some sort of competition.

dont think so, ronaldo will probably got the second place.

Andrés Iniesta.

I'd say Iniesta, but most will probably go for Messi

Messi, because of the goal in the UCL final - Uefa seem to like that kind of thing. I think he deserves it too.

10 Ballon d'or finalists.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
Didier Drogba (Chelsea)
Samuel Eto'o (Inter)
Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Barcelona)
Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)
Kaka (Real Madrid)
Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
Wayne Rooney (Man Utd)
Xavi (Barcelona)

No Lampard?

What did Kaka do last year? I swear all I heard of him was the Madrid saga. If Drogba's there, Lamps must be there.

Messi officially wins Ballon d'Or, with a record margin ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo.

473 votes

Messi came top of the vote by a clear margin. He received 473 votes, well ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo (233 votes) and Xavi (170 votes). He is the ninth Barça player to take the award and the first since Ronaldinho in 2005.

Third in 2007, second in 2008

He has made steady progress, finishing third in 2007 behind Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo and then second in 2008 behind Cristiano. And now he has taken that final step to finish first in 2009.

The top ten:

1. Lionel Messi (473)
2. Cristiano Ronaldo (233)
3. Xavi Hernández (170)
4. Andrés Iniesta (149)
5. Samuel Eto'o (75)
6. Kaká (58)
7. Ibrahimovic (50)
8. Wayne Rooney (35)
9. Didier Drogba (33)
10. Steven Gerrard (32)

Iniesta out of top three. What the hell?!

Anyone knows where's that official gala when the trophy is awarded?

again? for first time ever he is one of the 20 finalist.

Kaka shouldn't even be at the Top 10, what bull****. Yet again, tricks beat class. (I mean Iniesta, actually)

I've said it before, Xavi and Iniesta should be 1 and 2, Messi can get 3. Personally, I think Ronaldo deserves 3 more than Messi, but these awards have been a joke for as long as I can remember.

baffling... English teams dominate Europe for a number of years now... but where are the players.

Rooney, Drogba, Gerrard, lampard, vidic, Terry etc remember how well VDS did too? shattered records. I wonder what the top 20 was?