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FIFA World Player of the Year Shortlist 2009 (With Some Bonus Ballon d’Or Comparison) Posted: 30 Oct 2009 12:36 PM PDT FIFA has announced its shortlist of 23 players for the Men’s World Player of the Year award, and 10 players for the Women’s World Player of the Year Award. National team captains and coaches will now vote (but not for players from their own country) and this final five will be revealed in early December, with the winners announced at FIFA’s World Player bash in Zurich on December 21st. The shortlists are below, along with some FIFA WPotY shortlist vs Ballon d’Or shortlist comparison. Just for fun. Here is the FIFA Men’s World Player of the Year shortlist: Michael Ballack (Germany) Gianluigi Buffon (Italy) Iker Casillas (Spain) Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) Diego (Brazil) Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast) Michael Essien (Ghana) Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon) Steven Gerrard (England) Thierry Henry (France) Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden) Andres Iniesta (Spain) Kaka (Brazil) Frank Lampard (England) Luis Fabiano (Brazil) Lionel Messi (Argentina) Carles Puyol (Spain) Franck Ribery (France) Wayne Rooney (England) John Terry (England) Fernando Torres (Spain) David Villa (Spain) Xavi (Spain) The Ballon d’Or shortlist is 30 players long, so at least seven players were going to miss out on double-recognition. There were actually ten players from the Ballon d’Or list that didn’t make the FIFA WPotY list. They are: Andrei Arshavin, Edin Dzeko, Karem Benzema, Yohann Gourcuff, Maicon, Yaya Toure, Julio Cesar, Nemanja Vidic, Cesc Fabregas, Ryan Giggs. Which means there are three players who are on the FIFA WPotY list but aren’t on the Ballon d’Or list: Gigi Buffon, Carles Puyol, Michael Ballack. All of which proves that football awards and shortlists are completely subjective. And probably far too long. Whether players like Dzeko and Gourcugg deserved to be on the WPotY shortlist or not (I say yes) this award is more than likely going to come down to four men: Cristiano Ronaldo, Leo Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi. Here are the ten shorlisted FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year nominees: Nadine Angerer (Germany) Sonia Bompastor (France) Cristiane (Brazil) Inka Grings (Germany) Mana Iwabuchi (Japan) Simone Laudehr (Germany) Marta (Brazil) Birgit Prinz (Germany) Kelly Smith (England) Abby Wambach (USA) Five of the ten players ply their trade in Women’s Professional Soccer, so read Melissa’s reaction to the nominations here.

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