Lionel Messi has grabbed the World most prestigious soccer title, FIFA Ballon D’or (Golden Ball). The Argentina striker who plays for Spanish elite club FC Barcelona beat fellow team mates Andres Iniesta and Hernandez Xavi to bag home the award. It is the second consecutive year the 23-year-old attacker is receiving the title. Messi who had an outstanding 2010 season, winning the Spanish league with his club Barcelona, obtained 22.65% of the votes, ahead of his club team-mates Andrés Iniesta (17.36%) and Xavi (16.48%).
The grandiose ceremony which took place at the Congress Hall in Zurich also saw the award of trophies to other sports actors with, Jose Mourinho, who won an unprecedented treble with Inter Milan in 2010, emerging male coach of the year, German female soccer trainer Silvia Neid won the best female trophy, Brazilian female soccer player, Marta retained the best world female trophy for the fifth time on a trot. The presidential award went to South Africa Archbishop Desmond Tutu, while Haiti female squad took home the fair play trophy.
These awards were decided after a poll in which the captains and head coaches of the men’s (for the two men’s football awards) and women’s (for the two women’s football awards) national teams as well as international media representatives selected by France Football voted for candidates in each of the four categories. The votes from each of the three groups counted for one-third of the final result.
Meanwhile, the FIFA/FIFPro World XI also honoured the best eleven players of the year 2010, chosen by over 50,000 professional players from all over the world. The team consiste of; Iker Casillas (Spain) in goal; Maicon (Brazil), Lúcio (Brazil), Gerard Piqué (Spain) and Carles Puyol (Spain) in defence; Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Xavi (Spain) and Andrés Iniesta (Spain) at the midfield; and Lionel Messi (Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) and David Villa (Spain) up front.
