In the coming week, Manchester United will face a make-up match in the 18th round of the league against Wigan Athletic. A win over this opponent would give United a further boost to their lead at the top of the table.

However, before this round of the league comes, there is one thing that has caught the attention of fans around the world: the 2008 European Footballer of the Year award will be announced.

Founded in 1991, the annual World Awards Ceremony has entered its 18th year this year, and this year FIFA has fine-tuned the annual awards ceremony, first moving the time of the awards ceremony from December to January of the following year to avoid competition with the Ballon d'Or, and secondly, for the first time, the final selection of the World Footballer and Miss World Footballer is circled among five candidates.

In the last five shortlists announced by FIFA: Cristiano Ronaldo, Yang Fan, Messi, Kaka and Torres, these five people are fortunate to enter the final stage of the competition.

After the announcement of this five-person shortlist, there was another jubilation in China, no matter what the final result of Yang Fan was in the final ranking, he made a history!

The second place in the European Golden Ball Award and the top five in the World Footballer of the Year selection, Yang Fan can be said to have truly become one of the world's top stars!

Of course, in the football circle, the gold content of the World Footballer seems to be inferior to the selection of the European Ballon d'Or, which is very interesting, the World Footballer of the Year, that is, the FIFA World Footballer of the Year, is officially elected by FIFA, and the gold content is not as good as the selection sponsored by a media.

"FIFA World Footballer of the Year" can be considered as a symbol of the pinnacle of the football world from the name alone. In 1999, when the ambitious Shepchenko made his debut in Serie A, the reporter of "Milan Sports Newspaper" also asked the Ukrainians on this topic: "Is the world footballer the highest dream?" The Ukrainian striker at that time replied modestly: "I don't dare to think about this yet", but today, I am afraid it is difficult to say that the players will regard the world footballer as the highest honor hall in their hearts.

FIFA created the highest award in football in 1991 in order to overwhelm the popular French football and world football, but now it seems to be becoming more and more unpopular. In addition to the uneven composition of the judges, there are unfair judging criteria, ridiculous rules, and an increasing number of non-judging factors......

The 'principle of impartiality' is what fans value the most, and there have been many such stories in the last 18 years. In 1991, Mateus, who did not stand out too prominently, won the first World Footballer of the Year with the shadow of the World Cup, and was relegated to second place in France and Marseille's dazzling Papin, and the 1991 European Ballon d'Or was won by French midfielder Papin, who led the French team to victory in the European Championship qualifiers that year, and was indisputably elected to the European Ballon d'Or, but the World Footballer of the Year belonged to Mateus, and it is clear that the national team coaches who voted have not yet come out of the memory of the German chariot sweeping the world in the summer of 1990……

In 2000, Figo, who played the most stable performance in the whole year, lost to Zidane, who won the European Championship; in 2001, Figo won the award by overpowering Beckham for "taking care of love", but the Portuguese table was far inferior to 2000, and in 2002, Ronaldo only relied on 8 goals in the World Cup to have the last laugh, and countless media were worried that he had only missed 7 games in 7 years. In 2003, when Zidane defeated Nedved, who was extremely brave in both the league and the national team, and Thierry Henry, who was touted by the British and French media, AC Milan player Gattuso sarcastically said: "Zizou is a great player, but he is judged as 'best of the year' rather than 'best overall achievement'; if there had been this award before, then according to FIFA standards, Maradona should have won every year." ”

In the 2005 World Footballer of the Year selection, although Liverpool's captain Steven Gerrard led the team to complete a shocking comeback in the Champions League final, after falling behind by three goals, he chased three goals in ten minutes to equalize, and finally defeated AC Milan on penalties and won the European Champions Cup. That year's World Footballer of the Year was Ronaldinho, followed by Frank Lampard and Samuel Eto'o third. The media in England were upset with Gerrard, believing that it was FIFA's World Footballer of the Year selection rules that made Gerrard unfairly treated, and why Gerrard did not win the award because he was not as famous as Ronaldinho.

The judges of the Ballon d'Or are journalists from the global sports media, who spend their days keeping an eye on the news and changes in world football, and they are impressed by the players who are most likely to appear in the major sports news during the year, and they will carefully analyze the candidates' performances in all competitions during the year from a professional point of view, so as to arrive at an authoritative result.

But the voting power of the FIFA World Footballer of the Year is in the hands of the head coaches of the respective national teams, as well as the captains. You can expect the managers and captains of countries like Benin and Brunei to watch a few Champions League games, and they can't even say whether they have seen the Champions League games or not. The criterion for their selection is whether the candidate's name is familiar to him, if he is familiar, it means that he is good, if he is not familiar, he is not good.

Ronaldinho won the World Footballer of the Year in 2005, and Gerrard didn't even make it to the top three, this is an example, Ronaldinho was in full swing at that time, no one in the world didn't know the name of this Brazilian superstar, although Gerrard was also a superstar, but compared with Ronaldinho, his fame was a notch off.

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From this point of view, among the players shortlisted for the final five-man squad this year, Yang Fan's fame should be the smallest.

Cristiano Ronaldo needless to say, last year's World Footballer of the Year third place, just won the European Golden Ball Award, now just like the sun, Kaka, last year's World Footballer and the European Golden Ball Award, the fame is not far behind, Messi is last year's World Footballer of the Year second place and the European Golden Ball Award third place, it can also be said that it is now famous all over the world, Torres has also been famous for a long time, and the popularity of the Spanish Golden Boy in the world is needless to say.

Only Yang Fan, he has only begun to emerge in the last two seasons, among these five people, he is the least famous, for Yang Fan, the second place in this year's European Golden Ball Awards is barely a great increase in fame for him.

However, if the captains and managers of those national teams only voted on fame, Yang Fan would have been completely defeated by the other four and ranked at the bottom of the final five-man squad. Because the head coaches and captains of many national teams are not as professional as everyone thinks, many times they may know more about football tactics than ordinary fans, but in terms of football consulting, they are even inferior to many "pseudo-fans". Therefore, Yang Fan led the Bundesliga team that has been unknown to win the League Cup, won the German Cup, won the third place in the Bundesliga, won the Bundesliga Golden Boot, and broke the League Cup single-season goal record, such a great cause, they may not pay attention to it at all, because they may rarely pay attention to the five major leagues, the most important thing for them is the European Cup or the World Cup star table, however, Yang Fan did not even enter the Chinese national team and was removed from the Football Association, they are impossible to understand Yang Fan's strength from this aspect。 Of course, the name of the Chinese national team is said in international football, which is a joke.

Therefore, what the Chinese media and fans are most worried about is that for one reason or another, Yang Fan will finally be at the bottom of the five-man squad, in this way, they say they can't accept it, because based on last season's table and the new season's table xiàn, Yang Fan definitely has the strength to compete for the top three, and if you remove the factor that Yang Fan did not participate in the Champions League last season, just look at Yang Fan's table after transferring to Manchester United, he can be said to be the best in the new season, and the limelight even overshadowed the world footballer of the year favorite Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona's Argentine star Messi and AC Milan's Brazilian star Kaka。

Now, what Chinese fans are most concerned about is how many Yang Fan will eventually rank in the World Footballer of the Year selection. Cristiano Ronaldo is in full swing and is almost universally recognized as going to win the World Footballer of the Year award, so if Yang Fan can finish in the top three, it means that at least two of the three stars of Messi, Kaka and Torres will be squeezed out by him.

When CCTV Sports Channel made the trailer of the FIFA awards ceremony, it also used this suspense as a gimmick, inviting fans across the country to witness the night of the Zurich Opera House, which aroused everyone's appetite, and I believe that there must be many Chinese fans who stayed in front of the TV in front of the TV in the early morning of that day to follow the FIFA awards ceremony.

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The English media is very happy, on the one hand, Cristiano Ronaldo is almost universally recognized as going to win the World Footballer of the Year award, and on the other hand, in the list of the last five people, the Premier League occupies three seats, Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo and Yang Fan, and Liverpool's Torres, which makes the English, who have always prided themselves as the Premier League the number one league in the world, very proud.

After the match against Chelsea, Yang Fan flew to Zurich, Switzerland, where FIFA is headquartered, with Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney Rooney, Tevez, manager Alex Ferguson and Manchester United CEO Gil. They will be present at the World Footballer of the Year ceremony at the Grand Theatre in Zurich, where FIFA awards the 2008 awards. Beechcraft Tip: How to quickly search for the books you're looking for

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