Chapter 446: Chapter 445: World Footballer of the Year and the Puskás Award
Rumors have it that this winter, Manchester United will finally secure Fran.
As for why they’re not snatching up Cristiano Ronaldo...
The UEFA Champions League match against Barcelona was Lisbon Sporting’s last for the first half of the season.
In the second half of the season, they have at least four more Champions League games to play.
Both Lisbon Sporting and Cristiano Ronaldo himself treasure each upcoming Champions League match.
So, Ronaldo won’t be leaving in the winter window.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to play in the Champions League if he moved to Manchester United, which would be a great loss.
Moreover, heavyweight stars usually transfer only during the summer window.
This is called Face Value.
On December 9, in the 14th round of the Portuguese league,
Lisbon Sporting won against Valsin by two goals.
On December 15, in the 15th round of the Portuguese league,
Lisbon Sporting narrowly defeated Benfica with a score of four to three.
On December 16, "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy’s first film, "The Fellowship of the Ring" premiered in North America.
It earned a whopping 45 million US Dollars at the box office during the opening weekend, easily beating Tom Cruise’s "Vanilla Sky" to become the box office champion of the week.
In just five days, it grossed an impressive 731 million US Dollars, clearly aiming for the title of annual box office champion.
Without any surprises, this year’s box office champion will be either "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" or "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone."
On December 20, the FIFA World Player of the Year ceremony was grandly held.
Unexpectedly, the 10th place in this year’s World Player of the Year was Deng Kai!
In the same year, he was recognized by both World Player of the Year and the Golden Ball awards.
It’s considered unexpected because the "World Player of the Year" award tends to have a time lag.
It favors a player’s international influence more heavily.
A player usually needs to have succeeded in their field to start gaining influence, and disseminating this influence globally takes even more time.
If it’s almost impossible for a player nominated for the Golden Ball for the first time to break into the top ten,
it’s nearly impossible for someone who almost made the Golden Ball top ten for the first time to be selected for the World Player top ten.
Of course, a time lag also has its benefits. When you’ve fallen out of the top ten in the Golden Ball, you might still be in the top ten or even top five in World Player of the Year.
The 9th place in this year’s World Player of the Year went to Roma’s wolf king, Totti.
8th place went to Barcelona’s Rivaldo.
7th place to AC Milan’s Shevchenko.
6th place to Bayern’s Kahn.
Honestly, this seems a bit low, especially since Kahn was competing with Raul for the Golden Ball this year.
This also clearly shows how the goalkeeper position has a relatively weaker international influence.
The 5th place was for Veron at Manchester United.
But even based on his performance last season, this ranking seems too high.
This should be the result of his last season’s ranking plus Manchester United’s influence minus his performance this season, the theoretically best result he could achieve.
The 4th place went to Real Madrid’s star Zidane.
The 3rd place to Raul, who won the Golden Ball this year.
Second place was Manchester United’s ace Beckham, with only a slight gap between him and the first place.
The first place went to Portugal’s superstar from Real Madrid, Figo!
As for Owen, who should have been in the top three of the World Players, without the support of the quintuple; he could only rank outside of the top fifteen.
Overall, this World Player ranking was clearly controversial.
Figo received the World Footballer of the Year during his most "unproductive" year, which seemed somewhat unreasonable.
Moreover, considering that Deng Kai had no influence in other areas, Figo’s votes definitely did not come from the portion Deng Kai lost.
Where did they come from then?
They came from the previous year when Figo narrowly lost the World Footballer of the Year to Zidane.
Zidane’s championship honors indeed outnumbered those of others.
But the role Figo played in the Portugal team was simply too dazzling.
Being able to lead a congenitally deficient third-rate European football team like Portugal into the top four of the European Championship was actually a feat not too far behind Zidane’s.
Moreover, that was the year Figo transferred to Real Madrid, leaving a very profound impact on people.
So this was a compensation.
But this compensation hurt Beckham.
Beckham missed out on top football honors once again.
Whether it was the World Footballer of the Year or the Golden Ball, they seemed particularly harsh on him.
The highlight of the awards ceremony was, of course, the selection of the World Footballer of the Year.
But at the same time, there were many other exciting segments.
Like the FIFA Best Lineup:
Totti, Figo
Effenberge, Zidane, Vieira, Deng Kai, Beckham
Roberto Carlos, Nesta, Lizarazu
Kahn
The characteristic of this best lineup was that it had five midfielders.
Even considering the roles Figo played at Barcelona and Real Madrid, you could count him as a midfielder as well.
In a three-center-back formation, with Carlos and Lizarazu both being proper full-backs, it suffices to say how unique this list was.
This was originally a 442 lineup, but it was forcibly changed to a 352 because of a certain individual.
That individual was naturally... Deng Kai!
FIFA was still that FIFA, and originally, Deng Kai was not even on the list.
But as they noticed Deng Kai breaking into the top ten in votes, they had to start taking this player seriously.
Six titles!
Six MVPs!
In the last round of the first stage of the Champions League group matches this season, during the do-or-die battle between Sporting Lisbon and Lazio, Deng Kai scored a hat-trick and provided two assists, showing overwhelming strength!
He single-handedly achieved a triple consecutive victory, lifting the previously winless Sporting Lisbon into the Champions League round of 16.
At this point, it even seemed likely that Sporting Lisbon would advance to the next round in the second stage of the group matches.
Honestly, this level of team-leading ability was more prominent than several other players in the FIFA Best Lineup.
A player like that not making it into the best lineup, FIFA might agree, but the fans wouldn’t!
Additionally, at this grand event, Deng Kai personally took the stage.
During last season’s Europa League match against Kaiserslautern, he scored that sensational goal where he dribbled past six players and nutmegged the goalkeeper, earning him the Best Goal of the European Season award!
This award was also a precursor to the future "Puskás Award."
While receiving the award, Deng Kai used his humor to defuse the hostility of fans hearing his name for the first time, "Thanks to FIFA for acknowledging my performance over the past year."
"I now regret that we encountered Lazio a bit too soon in the Champions League. If we had met after this awards ceremony, that bicycle kick free-kick goal would have won me this award again."
"Of course, I won’t wallow in self-pity. I will strive to bring fans more exciting goals in the coming year."
"I also hope that football fans around the world will pay more attention to Sporting Lisbon matches and keep up with my personal updates on Dongqiudi! Over the next week, I will draw ten lucky viewers from my Dongqiudi account followers every evening at eight."
