No Sweden, No Party

Cristiano Ronaldo just lost any chance he had of winning the 2016 Balon D’Or yesterday against Juventus. He did score his usual non-existant penalty, but it wasn’t enough to stop Real Madrid from being knocked-off the UCL.

While in January, 2015 he had actual arguments to win his 3rd Balon D’Or (UCL Champion, 18 UCL goals, European Golden Boot), let’s talk about his 2nd one, in 2014, how scandalous it was for him to win it and how the same thing cannot possibly happen in 2016.

Here’s what Messi, Ribery and CR achieved in 2013:

While CR did score more goals than anyone else (69 in 59 matches), he didn’t win La Liga (Messi did), UCL (Ribery did), or Copa Del Rey (where he was sent off during the final he lost to Atletico Madrid). His only title was the Spanish Supercup.

Ribery won as UEFA’s Best Player and had his Triple with Bayern Munich to back him up, even though individually he was miles behind Messi/CR. Ribery scored only 23 goals in 55 games that year.

Messi, who missed the last 3 months in 2013 due to injury, but still managed to score 45 goals in 47 matches, was the European Golden Shoe winner, and had won La Liga in 2013.

If Ribery had way more titles, plus the UEFA’s Best Player award, and Messi had the Golden Shoe and La Liga, how did CR managed to win the 2014 Balon D’Or?

Because Blatter did this: 

That happened in October 29th, 2013. The original deadline to cast the Balon D’Or votes was November 15th. But CR threatened to not attend the Balon D’Or Gala. The Bernabeu had thousand of masks with CR’s face in it to protest.

Then, on November 19th, CR scored a hat trick against Sweden, and put Portugal on the World Cup (Messi was the South American Qualifiers topscorer and Argentina finished as first, by the way).

FIFTEEN HOURS LATER, FIFA announced they were extending the voting period until November 29th: http://www.espnfc.com/fifa-world-cup/story/1621866/fifa-extend-ballon-dor-voting-deadline–report

So let’s make this very clear: in a year where his other two adversaries had more titles than him, CR was gifted a 2 week voting extension 15 hours (!) after doing well in a World Cup qualifier match because FIFA’s President had made fun of him. People often forget how absurd that was.

In 2016, CR has no chance of winning his 4th Balon D’Or.

La Liga is 3 points away from Barcelona, who will also play the Copa del Rey final (which means the Spanish Supercup won’t feature Real Madrid). Barcelona will also play the UCL final against Juventus.

CR will finish 2015 with no titles whatsoever. He could win the European Golden shoe, especially if the Spanish FA/Players Association go on with their strike (the last two league matches wouldn’t be played), but he could still lose this one individual title to Messi, who is only 2 goals behind him and could play 2 more matches.

No World Cup qualifiers against Sweden, ergo, no reason to be gifted a voting extension.

He may score as many Liga/UCL group phase goals as he wishes in the second semester (season 2015/16), but he won’t have a single chance to play a final.

Messi, meanwhile, could very well have a Triple by June 6th, is already ahead of CR in 2015 goals, and still has the possibility of winning the Copa América with Argentina.

This time around, it is simply not possible for CR to be helped in his constant search to tie to match Messi. His little tauting scream during the 2015 Balon D’Or gala, where he said he wanted to surpass Messi in Balon D’Or titles backfired: Not only is Messi having his best season ever, he actually has the chance of winning up to 7 titles in 2015, while already scoring more (Neymar and Suarez are scoring at the same rate as CR in 2015) and giving more assists than CR.

From “No Penalty, No Party” to “No Sweden, No Party”.

In January, 2016, the injustice from 2014 won’t be erased, cause CR still has a Balon D’Or that shouldn’t belong to him, but he will watch Messi win his 5th Balon D’Or.