The FIFA World Player Gala took place on Monday, January 12 at the Kongresshaus concert hall in Zurich, Switzerland. The ceremony was held to crown the following award winners: the FIFA Ballon D’Or to the best male player of the world, the FIFA Fair Play Award, the FIFA Presidential Award, the FIFA World XI, the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s and Women’s Football, the Puskas Award for the goal of the year, and the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year.
The First award that started the night was the FIFA/FIFPro World XI for 2014. Each year FIFPro invites all professional footballers in the world to submit their nominations for the best lineup of the year. Every player is requested to pick one goalkeeper, four defenders, three midfielders and three strikers. This year’s honorees were goalkeeper Manuel Neuer; Philipp Lahm, Sergio Ramos, Thiago Silva and David Luiz as defenders; Andres Iniesta, Toni Kroos and Angel Di Maria in midfield; and Cristiano Ronaldo, Arjen Robben and Lionel Messi as the three best strikers in the world as selected by their peers.
The next award presented was the FIFA Presidential award, honoring an individual who has been of service with an exemplary attitude during a FIFA event. This year, the award was given to Hiroshi Kagawa, who was the oldest member of the press corps at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and was covering his tenth global finals. Thanks to his dispatches and his passion, his desire to illuminate and transmit the virtues of the world’s game, Japanese football has blossomed.
After presenting the FIFA Presidential Award, it came down to the selection of coaches and it all started with Women’s World Coach. The three finalists consisted of Maren Meinert of Germany, Norio Sasaki of Japan and Ralf Kellerman of Germany. The award was presented to Ralf Kellerman who lead the women’s VfL Wolfsburg team to the defense of their UEFA Champions league crown, as well as sealing the German title again on the final match day of the season.
The Men’s World coach awards’ three finalist came down to Germany’s Joachim Loew, Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancoletti and Atletico Madrid’s Diego Simeone. The award was presented to Germany’s Joachim Loew. After taking over when Jurgen Klinsmann left the post after the 2006 World Cup, Loew has consistently managed to get the best 23 men to represent Germany, culminating in the 2014 FIFA World Cup win this past July, where the German team went undefeated throughout the whole competition.
The FIFA Fair Play Award recognizes and promotes the spirit of fair play in the beautiful game of soccer and this year it went to the FIFA tournament volunteers. Their contribution was recognized on Monday night for all the hard work they contributed during the FIFA World Cup in Brazil and all other FIFA events.
After presenting the Award to the FIFA tournament volunteers, the Puskas award was up next to be announced. The FIFA Puskas award recognizes the player who scores the best goal of the year and this year, the nominees were Robin Van Persie with his incredible flying header goal against Spain in the World Cup; James Rodriguez for his beautiful chest and volley that put Colombia ahead in the World Cup’s round of 16 against Uruguay; and Stephanie Roche from the Republic of Ireland who juggled the ball in the air with her back to goal, and then turned and volleyed it home in a club match. The award was given to Rodriguez who won the award and thanked his country and fellow teammates for the support.
The next award was the FIFA Women’s World Player of the year. The nominees for the award were Brazil’s Marta, the USA’s Abby Wambach, and Germany’s Nadine Kessler. The award was presented to Kessler and she could not have been more than proud to accept the award. At the age of 26, Kessler was able to captain Ralf Kellermans’ VfL Wolfsburg to win the women’s Bundesliga and UEFA Champions League titles. Along with these three titles, Nadine Kessler also helped the Germany Women’s national team qualify for this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.
After the tragic death of Wolfsburg’s Junior Malanda this past weekend, Kellerman’s and Kessler’s honors will go a long way in helping the organization heal.
The last award of the night was the biggest of them all and the one the world was waiting for the whole night. The last three finalists came down to Barcelona and Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Real Madrid and Portugal’s own Cristiano Ronaldo and Bayern Munich and Germany’s goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer. There were a lot of speculation as to who would win it this year. Louis Van Gaal mentioned that he did not think Messi nor Ronaldo deserved it, and even FIFA President Blatter believed that the award should have gone to someone else rather than Cristiano Ronaldo. French legend Thierry Henry came on stage to announce that the winner was Cristiano Ronaldo.
As Ronaldo took the stage, Messi and Neuer looked from the audience as the Portuguese accepted the award and was speechless for a bit. He thanked the fans, his teammates, and most importantly his son who was now old enough to understand what was going on and why he was at the ceremony. Ronaldo had an incredible year in 2014, winning the Champions League, Spanish Copa Del Rey, the FIFA Club World Cup, and the UEFA Super Cup and was a key part of an incredible 22-win streak with Real Madrid to close out the year. This is the second year in a row that Ronaldo wins the award and his third overall, one behind Messi. Ronaldo proved to be the best player of 2014, though not showing it in the World Cup, but he more than made up for that with Real Madrid.
After winning his third Ballon D’Or, Ronaldo hopes to continue his run and bring more awards to the table and hopefully surpass Messi or at least catch up to him. Only time will tell, but for now Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player in the world.
Photo by: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images