The dust has settled on the grouping of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, and it will only be the next summer when the smoke will return, while the European clubs are reaching their climax.

With the Toyota Cup Yu Yong, in the Champions Cup, Inter Milan defeated Bayern Munich again 2:0 at the Meazza Stadium, Bayern Munich lost three consecutive games against Inter Milan, and then Inter Milan won Bologna in the league play-ups, and the standings once again narrowed the distance with AC Milan and Juventus.

Immediately afterwards, Inter Milan went to Manchester, and a heart-wrenching 3:3 made Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson almost vomit blood on the spot, and Ronaldo almost equalized the seconds.

In the first three rounds of the Champions Cup group stage, Inter Milan won two and drew one to accumulate 7 points and ranked first in the group, while Manchester United and Bayern were in second and third place, and Boavista could only play soy sauce in fourth place without a point. If this trend continues, one team from Manchester United and Bayern Munich will definitely miss out on the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

After returning to the league, Inter Milan won the opponent with a score of 4:1 on the road, and got six points from two supplementary games, and finally overtook AC Milan and Juventus in the standings to become the top of the table.

According to Inter Milan president Moratti, 2001 was a flawless and fantastic year for Inter Milan, with the five-time crown taking Inter Milan to the top and then continuing to win the league title for the 15th, and it seems that the pace will not stop at all.

And now, the winter break is coming, and the team can get about half a month to rest for the arrival of 2002.

And at the end of the year, it is time to decide who will win the two awards in international football. While the World Footballer of the Year and the European Footballer of the Year are two different awards, the faces of the candidates are mostly the same, and the reason is simple: most of the world's top stars play in Europe.

The "World Footballer of the Year" award was established by FIFA in 1991, and the head coaches of each national team participate in the voting process, and they can vote for the top three players in their minds, according to the order of ranking, these three players will receive 5 points, 3 points and 1 point respectively, and the highest cumulative total score will become the World Footballer of the Year. Participating national team coaches cannot vote for their own players.

The selection of the "European Footballer of the Year" award can be traced back to 1956, and its predecessor was the "Ballon d'Or" selected by the magazine "French football". Sports journalists from all 51 European countries will be selected from five players each, who will receive 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points respectively, with the highest total score being voted European Footballer of the Year.

Since 1995, all players who have played in Europe, regardless of their place of origin, have been able to participate in the European Footballer of the Year award. Of course, not every year the awards are based on the opinions of national team coaches and sports journalists, with the exception of Ronaldo (World) and Summerer (Europe) in 1996.

With neither the World Cup nor the European Championship this year, and most of the South American players who played in Europe invariably giving up the Copa America, there are no rising stars among the candidates for the two awards, so the favourites can only be selected from the best players in the Champions League and the League Cup.

There are a number of notable players nominated for these two awards:

Real Madrid Trident

The French stars Zinedine Zidane and Figo in the Real Madrid team were second and third respectively, and were pressed on the head by Zheng Zhi. I'm afraid that this year will be even worse, and I may not even be able to enter the top three, and I may not even be as good as Raul. In last season's La Liga, Raul deservedly occupied the top scorer and was the second scorer in the Champions Cup. Portugal star Figo was instrumental in Real Madrid's regain of La Liga, and although he was unable to help them retain the Champions League, he was still one of the best midfielders in Europe. Equally outstanding is French midfielder Zinedine Zinedine Zidane, who continues to command his role in midfield.

French musketeers

Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Piret are the most intimidating weapons in Arsenal's arsenal, and the three musketeers will also be contenders for both awards this year. Thierry Henry is France's best striker, but he missed this year's Confederations Cup, with Patrick Vieira and Andreas Pire shining in between. Patrick Vieira is considered by many to be the best all-round player in the Premier League at the moment, and Pire is also the most talented midfielder in France since Zinedine Zidane.

British Guard

Without Owen, David Beckham and Steven Gerrard, England may not be able to qualify for next year's World Cup in South Korea and Japan, while Christian Eriksen would have been back in Sweden long ago. Owen's stunning hat-trick in England's 5-1 thrashing of Germany will not be forgotten, nor David Beckham's game-changing free-kick against the Greeks, and first-time nominee Steven Gerrard is a new face this year, widely seen as Gascoigne's successor. As for Owen? His performance was no less than that of Ronaldo.

King Toti of Rome

Italian fans like to refer to Totti as "Totti VIII", and in the minds of fans, he is the king of the green field and the hope of Italy to win the World Cup next year. In both Roma and Italy, he played a central role.

Bayern twin tigers

Midfielder Effenberg has now become Bayern's new spiritual leader, but he has refused to represent Germany at international level despite his surprising moves. Goalkeeper Kahn has always been regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in Europe.

Spanish swordsman

Among the many candidates, Mendieta is a wandering swordsman. His performances in Valencia have earned him worldwide recognition.

Argentine Legion

Argentina are seen as the favourites to win the World Cup next year thanks to their impressive performances in World Cup qualifying, with their two ace strikers, Crespo and Batistuta, not only fighting for the centre-forward position in the national team for many years, but also in the Apennines. Crespo finished second in Serie A with 26 goals last season, while Batistuta managed only 20 goals after his move to Roma.

Then there are Veron, who currently plays for Manchester United, Valencia defender Ayala and Roma's Samuel.

Ukrainian Lightning

AC Milan's Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko is a true 'shooting machine' who has scored 24 goals in Serie A for the second season in a row, and that stellar run is likely to continue this season.

Nordic blaster

Also among the candidates are a pair of strikers from Northern Europe: Sweden's Larsson and Denmark's Sander. Larsson, who plays for Scottish Premier League champions Celtic, has scored 35 goals in 33 league games and helped Sweden get a ticket to next year's trip to South Korea and Japan after an eight-year World Cup absence. Sander's Schalke 04 finished runners-up in the Bundesliga by just one point last season, but he himself became the joint top scorer in the Bundesliga.

Brazilian magician

Brazil finally stumbled through to the World Cup, although the only Brazilian players in the tournament were Rivaldo and Ronaldo. Rivaldo, who won two awards in 1999, almost single-handedly secured Barcelona a place in the Champions League last season. Ronaldo is even more awesome, Inter Milan won the five crowns, not only set a single-season goal record of 37 goals in the Italian Serie A, but also set a goal record of 18 goals in the Champions League, he is one of the most popular players.

Finally, of course, the pride of Asia - the king Zheng Zhi!

Ronaldo has club honors, he has them, but Zheng Zhi has national team honors, Ronaldo does not, because Zheng Zhi also won the Confederations Cup on behalf of the Chinese team. In terms of individual honors, Ronaldo also has an advantage, and Zheng Zhi's goal record in the league and Champions Cup cannot be compared.

Everyone on earth knows that this year's Golden Globe Awards will only be produced among Zheng Zhi, Ronaldo and Owen. The first two guys won the Champions Cup, Serie A, Italian Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and Toyota Cup, while Owen won the FA Cup, League Cup, League Cup and other honours.

This week French football will announce the winner of the European Footballer of the Year, while FIFA will also announce this year's World Footballer of the Year this week.

UEFA and FIFA are fighting in the open, and even the award time was chosen on the same day, which made the award recipients feel very embarrassed.

Fortunately, there is a big difference between the two awards.

The award of the European Footballer of the Year is very simple, not as big as the pomp of the World Footballer, they only invite the Golden Ball winner to receive the award, and arrange it to be held in the French Télévisions sports live broadcast room at 15:00 pm on the 18th. The award ceremony was also very brief, less than an hour before and after.

The World Footballer of the Year award will be announced at the World Trade Center in Zurich, where stars from all over the world will attend.

Before the award was announced, major spinach companies in Europe also offered odds to win the prize, and Zheng Zhi and Ronaldo were indeed the two players with the highest demand. It's just surprising that the two have different odds positions in the Ballon d'Or and World Footballer of the Year.

In the odds of the Golden Ball, Ronaldo ranks first with 1 to 2.39, Zheng Zhi ranks second with 1 to 2.99, and Owen is sad to rank third with 1 to 5.95.

In the odds of the World Footballer, Zheng Zhi just changed the position with Ronaldo, Zheng Zhi is 2.53 to 1, Ronaldo is 2.86 to 1, and Owen is 6.21 to 1.

Obviously, the selection criteria for the Ballon d'Or and the World Footballer of the Year are different, which has also led to a change in the positions of Ronaldo and Zheng Zhi, but this has nothing to do with Owen. There's really no way to compare the UEFA Cup to the Champions Cup, although Owen has done it to the extreme.

In fact, Zheng Zhi knew the answer to the Ballon d'Or three days ago, because after the French football magazine came to the Inter Milan training ground, it was to shoot a short film for Ronaldo, not to find him. He had that experience, so he congratulated Ronaldo in advance.

Without the Ballon d'Or, maybe the World Footballer of the Year? Anyway, Zheng Zhi is not unhappy, no matter what, as long as the Ballon d'Or can stay in Inter Milan, it doesn't matter who wins him or Ronaldo, as long as it doesn't divert the votes between the two, let Owen benefit from the fisherman.

Of course, out of a good impression of Owen, Owen doesn't have much regret about taking it, after all, Owen is really good......

On the morning of the 18th, in order to catch up with the two awards, Moratti used a private jet to personally accompany Ronaldo and Zheng Zhi to Paris, France to receive the award.

Owen didn't come, and it seemed that he knew that he had no hope of winning the prize, so he simply ran straight to Zurich.

Ronaldo won the 2001 European Footballer of the Year, also known as the Ballon d'Or.

He won the championship with 176 points, Zheng Zhi was second with 140 points, and Owen was third with 114 points.

This is also the second time Ronaldo has won the Ballon d'Or, winning twice in 1997 and 2001, which is already quite remarkable in the history of the Ballon d'Or, only Platini, Van Basten and Cruyff have won the award three times.

Ronaldo was also very emotional:

"I knew I was one of the favourites, but when I heard the news, I couldn't believe it. I think Zheng Zhi is very competitive, we know each other well, and half of the credit for the award I was able to win was due to him, he gave me too many assists, and it was only because I was a striker that I took advantage. ”

"I'm sorry, brother." When he said these words, he looked at Zheng Zhi in the audience affectionately and waved to Zheng Zhi.

There was warm applause at the scene, Ronaldo is drinking water and not forgetting the attitude of the well digger.

'Again, Owen deserves the Ballon d'Or, he's so good and I have to have a lot of respect for him, he's a great opponent.'

"I used to wonder if I would be able to return to the stage after a serious injury."

"But I really did it today, and it's not a dream."

"Thank you, thank you......"

"Thank you all!"

……

As he spoke, Ronaldo actually burst into tears on the spot! I can't help it. Looking back on the past, even I was moved by myself.

Only he knows best how much effort he has put in and how many hardships he has gone through to get back into the ring!

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After the Golden Ball Awards ceremony, they flew non-stop to Zurich, Switzerland, and began to walk the red carpet of the world footballer of the year. And they are still the most popular and shining stars.

Here they finally have time to be interviewed by the news media.

Zheng Zhi was surrounded by a group of Chinese media reporters.

"Zheng Zhi, how does it feel to lose the Golden Globe Award?"

"I didn't lose it, Ronaldo took it, and I'm very happy, I took it last year, not the first time." Zheng Zhi grinned, without a trace of displeasure on his face.

He is such an open-minded person, the career road is still very long, it is impossible for him to take it every year, before Messi and Ronaldo did not rise. Well, there are actually two other Brazilian guys, Ronaldinho and Kaka.

Looks like the Golden Globe Award is not enough points?

"The world footballer is different, in the odds of the spinach company, you are ahead of Ronaldo, maybe you can pull one back?"

Zheng Zhi smiled again, "That's the best, Ronaldo already has two World Footballers, and if he wins another one, it will be unbalanced with the Ballon d'Or." ”

"We'll see."

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At 20:00 in the evening, the World Footballer of the Year award ceremony officially began.

The first to be selected was Miss World Football, and there was no suspense.

Mia Hamm, who scored 129 goals in 219 appearances for the United States, topped the list with 154 points, and 72 head coaches filled her on the ballot, with Son Wen scoring just 79 points and Millbright in third place with 47 points.

This was followed by the World Footballer of the Year award.

There is suspense here, the camera camera is constantly dangling in front of Zheng Zhi and Ronaldo, and he doesn't bother to pay attention to Owen's side at all, because Mr. will only be produced from the two of them.

'He's both an assist and a scorer, he's got an artist's feel to him, and that technique makes him a modern all-rounder.

"He's—Zheng Zhi!" Portuguese legend Eusebio finally pronounced Zheng Zhi's name.

Zheng Zhi, Ronaldo and Owen are still the top three, and among the 130 national team managers who filled in the ballots, Zheng Zhi scored the highest score!

Compared to last year's results, this year's top 2 scores are very close. Zheng Zhi scored 250 points, Ronaldo scored 238 points, and third place Owen scored 96 points.

"Ahem,"

Zheng Zhi finally stood on the podium this year.

"It's wonderful."

"To be able to stand here for the second year in a row,"

"I thought it was Ronnie's again." Zheng Zhi shrugged his shoulders and made a joke.

"He just kicked me in the foot, otherwise I really forgot to stand up."

The scene burst into laughter.

'I have to thank him, without his crazy goals it wouldn't have brought out my brilliance, without a good striker and in midfield.

"And, of course, Vieri, Recoba, Pirlo...... And so on and so forth. ”

"The overall functioning of the team is the most critical, you can't win with only three or four of the best players in the team, a team has about 20 players, each with their own strengths and plays an important role. Nothing can be achieved on our own, we all serve the whole team, and no one can be special. ”

"I am grateful to my teammates and coaches at Inter Milan and China, to my family, my future wife and children."

？？？

The audience was instantly stunned, everyone thought they had heard it wrong, and began to talk about it. When did you have a wife and children?

And Zheng Zhi also stopped, and after everyone was confused, he continued with a smile:

"I'm not wrong, am I? My future wife and children, I am grateful for the future, I will definitely have. ”

！！！！

There was laughter again.

I see!

"Obviously, the competition for this award is very fierce and I had a year full of miracles, especially in China, where we won the Confederations Cup and reached the World Cup finals for the first time, which is the most wonderful feeling I've ever had, not one of them."

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