Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho believes that his Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo achieved more in 2012 to deserve the Ballon D’Or than eventual winner Lionel Messi. His main reason for believing that Ronaldo should have won the award is the fact that he lifted the La Liga title.
Messi has won the Ballon D’Or for the past four years, but Mourinho feels that Real Madrid’s performances in La Liga were guided by the talismanic Ronaldo and should have been enough to see him beat his arch rival.
“Cristiano should have won the award to the best player in the world. He was champion in La Liga, he was decisive in the league with all the records.”
Ronaldo scored a phenomenal 46 goals in 38 La Liga appearances as Real Madrid became the first team in La Liga history to achieve a record tally of 100 points breaking another brand new scoring record of 121 times.
However, Messi broke Gerd Muller’s 40 year record of 85 goals for club and country in a calendar year to win the award. The only other title Messi won was the Copa Del Rey after Barcelona lost both the La Liga title as well as the Champions League.
In an attempt to remind Cristiano of his disappointment a group of women from a Lisbon bakery presented him with a Ballon D’Or made out of cake.
They brazenly held up signs which said: “We make your dreams come cake.” It was still a nice gesture for Cristiano to be shown how much he is adored in his homeland. Even if you add the cake Ballon D’Or to the real Ballon D’Or he won in 2008, his rival Messi would still own twice as many, but on the upside for Ronaldo at least he can eat one of his.
José Mourinho says he did not attend Fifa’s Ballon d’Or gala because some who voted for him as coach of the year claim their votes showed up as supporting other candidates instead. Mourinho made this ruthless claim on Tuesday in an interview with Portuguese public service broadcaster RTP. The coaching award was given to Spain’s coach Vicente del Bosque after he won Euro 2012.
Mourinho stood by his claim as he said: “I’m accusing FIFA of irregularities in the vote for best manager in the world. There was a lack of transparency. FIFA was aware of these irregularities, knowing they were there, but did nothing to avoid them.”
Bitter or correct?
Zak Bird