The 2011 FIFA Ballon d’Or ended with no real surprises; just the usual staid categories with the same old boring names read out monotonously. We brought you our exclusive coverage of it here. Some of you denied the incidents we mentioned even took place, but we stuck to our guns.
Anyway, with no real surprises there, we felt something was amiss. This is football, for cryinai??i?? out loud! It deserves an awards ceremony where we get to celebrate the moments and people that really make the beautiful game tick. Weai??i??ve decided to dish out deserving awards to those who missed out. The winners are welcome to contact us within a week of this announcement, failing which we will retain ownership of said awards and hand them out next year.
The Justin Bieber Award For Being A Young Unproven Hack
Thanks to the internet, one kidai??i??s home videos turned into a viral sensation and him into a superstar ai??i?? if you ask teenage girls high on meth. A lot of young players the world over dream of making it big, even before they put in the hard work. And the key to that is YouTube, where courtesy some freeware video editing software even someone like Heskey gets to look like Rooney.
As the hits go up, their agents do the rest & an exorbitant price tag is slapped on them before they can be threatened with having to prove themselves on a really big stage. Previous winners include Jermaine Pennant & Ryan Babel.
Nominees:Ai??
Romelu Lukaku (A?18 million in add-ons)
Neymar (A?40 million price tag)
Winner:
Neymar
Hailed as the next Messi by some, and as being better than Messi by Pele (who also said that Nigeria would win a World Cup last century), the young Brazilian seems to have the world (Real Madrid, Chelsea & Man City) at his feet. Which club will he ends up at, will depend on who is willing to fork out A?40 million. Going by talent, he certainly has the potential. Going by his latest haircut, we most certainly hope not.
The Kim Kardashian Award
Awarded to the manager, whose tenure with his football club most closely resembles the bottom-heavy Kim Kardashianai??i??s short & fruitful (read: profitable) wedding to Whatai??i??s-His-Name Humphries.
Nominees:
Steve McLaren ai??i?? Nottingham ForestAi?? (13 Jun 2011 – 2 Oct 2011)
Michael Oenning – Hamburger SV (13 March 2011 – 19 September 2011)
Gian Piero Gasperini ai??i?? Internazionale ai??i?? (24 June 2011 to 21 September 2011)
Winner:
Gian Piero Gasperini
Since, none of us have ever heard of the other two clubs, Gasperini, who managed to make Inter suck even worse than it did under Rafa Benitez, gets the nod in this category. It took just five matches but Massimo Moratti decided he had seen enough as Gasperini was given marching orders after Inter lost 1-3 against newly promoted Novara.
Ai??The ai???New Years Eveai??i?? Award
Awarded to a match that was high profile & filled with stars ai??i?? just like the movie, which looked good on paper but then just seemed to go on & on till a point that nobody cared.
Winner:
El Clasico
Real Madrid & Barcelona faced each other not once, not twice but seven times in 2011. While the initial idea has football fans salivating at seeing two of the biggest football clubs go head to head consecutively for such high profile games, it soon became a case of too much of a good thing.
Despite the pitch being graced by players like Messi, Xavi & Ronaldo, youai??i??d be forgiven if you thought you were being transported back and forth between a Shakespearean drama and a gladiatorial fight in the Colosseum. Yes it did have it moments of magic, but from such games you expect more. Insults, red cards, dives, playacting, slaps, eye pokes are all what we got.
Do you want your money back?
The Lee Strasberg Excellence In Theatrics AwardAi??
Awarded to those players who donai??i??t mind taking one (dive) for the sake of their team. As long as it resulted in a red card towards an opposing player, a penalty or even an alternate career in Steven Segal’s movies.
Nominees:
Sergio Busquets, Javier Mascherano, Pedro, Dani Alves (Barcelona)
Cristiano Ronaldo, Angel Di Maria (Real Madrid)
Nani (Manchester United)
Winner:
Sergio Busquets, Javier Mascherano, Pedro, Dani Alves (Barcelona)
Ideally, Cristiano Ronaldo should win this award hands down for his sheer inventiveness, but the Barcelona teammates win this award as an ensemble cast for their collective effort & team play in pushing each other in breaking new boundaries of believable theatrics. Of course, all this doesnai??i??t come easily. Behind the famed ai???La Masiaai??i?? academy lies another academy, where these skills are honed to perfection & from where our winners graduated summa cum laude.
Itai??i??s their practiced persistence to the art-form that ought to make players like Drogba ai??i?? who has never managed a convincing dive ai??i?? and Torres ai??i?? who gets carded even if he didnai??i??t dive ai??i?? cringe in shame.
The Adam Sandler/Russel Brand award
Awarded to those players, who like the above ai???actorsai??i?? are backed by big studios, big budgets & yet they never fail to fail us.
Nominees:
Andy Carroll ai??i?? Liverpool (A?35 million)
Fernando Torres ai??i?? Chelsea (A?50 million)
Winner:
Fernando Torres
While competition for the award was intense between the two strikers, Carroll is under less pressure largely due to innovative midfield & the spotlight being on Suarez & Gerrard more often. On the other hand, Torres has been under the microscope right from the start ai??i?? be the team news to post-match analysis. But thatai??i??s what comes with such a heavy price tag, add to that the fact that this deal was done when the striker was having his worst run of form (prior to joining Chelsea) just makes the deal a monumental fail. Somewhere in Ukraine, a certain Shevchenko must be thanking Torres for taking over his mantle.
Torres, who has been on somewhat of an upswing in recent times, has relied on his work-ethic, team spirit and his pitiable homeless puppy dog expression that has people subconsciously wanting to forgive him.
Ai??The Gaddafi Award For Biggest Personality
What would we do without footballai??i??s biggest personalities to brighten up our day, when thereai??i??s little to no on-field transgressions.
Nominees:
Ryan Giggs ai??i?? Manchester United
Carlos Tevez ai??i?? Manchester City
Mario Balotelli ai??i?? Manchester City
Winner:
Mario Balotelli
While it takes incredible perseverance to engage in such debauchery that Ashley Cole, Rooney and Terry look like choir boys, Ryan Giggs never stood a chance in this category. Neither did Carlos Tevez, who unfailingly makes himself the most reviled at whichever club he plays.
Mario Balotelli ai??i?? our winner ai??i?? is a law unto himself. Answering to nobody but his sociopathic self-conscience, Balotelli, who has in the past driven into a womenai??i??s prison and worn an AC Milan jersey while being on Interai??i??s payroll, started this past year just as he ended the one before.
He threw darts at Manchester City academy players, mistaking their on-field formation for a dartboard. He then redeemed himself by paying A?1000 to a homeless man for no apparent reason, and then shot himself in the foot by failing to put on a bib. His PR team went into over-drive, but Balotelli undid their efforts by trying a back heel against LA Galaxy, leaving nobody in doubt as to what he thought of the game. He then set fireworks off in his bathroom, because that is clearly what normal people do, and topped it off with getting his Maserati impounded 27 times and crashing his Lamborghini with a bag of A?25,000 pounds in the passenger seat. His reason? ai???Because I canai???.
Weai??i??d give him a medal, but weai??i??re worried he might strangle someone, perhaps even himself, with it.
– Saumitra ai???Samai??i?? Sabnis
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