Spain’s World Cup winners Xavi and Andres Iniesta were joined by holder Lionel Messi on an all--Barcelona shortlist for the FIFA Ballon d’Or announced on Monday.
Iniesta scored the winning goal in Spain’s World Cup final victory over the Netherlands in Johannesburg in July and, along with his midfield partner Xavi and Argentina forward Messi, helped Barcelona to win the Spanish league title.
Messi had a disappointing World Cup by his own high standards, failing to score in the tournament as Argentina, coached by Diego Maradona, suffered a 4-0 defeat by Germany in the quarter-finals.
PHOTO: AFP
“It’s an honor to be one of the three finalists for the Ballon d’Or and even more so to be there with Xavi and Leo,” Iniesta wrote on his Facebook page. “It’s a marvelous prize for the cantera [Barca youth school].”
Vicente del Bosque of Spain, the man who masterminded Spain’s first World Cup success, made the shortlist for the Coach of the Year award along with Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola and Real Madrid’s Jose Mourinho, who won the Champions League with Inter Milan.
“Since 2008, Spanish football is really ahead of the rest. They are also dominating so much at club level,” FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke told a media conference.
“They are playing so well in their club. They are crushing world football at the moment. Barcelona’s match against Madrid last week was a brilliant display of football,” he said.
It was the third time that three players from the same club had been named on the Ballon d’Or shortlist. In 1988 and 1989, AC Milan monopolized the first three spots on the list, with Dutch striker Marco Van Basten winning both times.
This year’s winners will be announced on Jan. 10 in Zurich. Messi won both awards last year.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
Erling Haaland on Sunday scored twice to propel Manchester City up to second in the English Premier League with a 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth. The Cherries started the day in second thanks to the longest unbeaten run in the English top flight, but Andoni Iraola’s side were undone by the scintillating form of the Norwegian striker, who took his tally to 13 Premier League goals in 10 games. Haaland’s relentless streak is maintaining City’s title challenge as they reduced the gap to leaders Arsenal back to six points and edged one point ahead of Liverpool, who they face at the weekend. “Important
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
RSS