THE BIGGEST NAMES in world football gathered at Kongresshaus in Zurich for the 2014 Ballon d’Or awards ceremony today.
We brought you all the winners and, as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Email ben@thescore.ie, tweet @football_.ie, post a message to our Facebook wall, or leave a comment below.
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- Stephanie Roche comes second in the Puskas Award behind winner James Rodriguez. Robin van Persie is third.
- Cristiano Ronaldo wins his second consecutive Ballon d’or with Lionel Messi finishing runner-up ahead of Manuel Neuer.
Good afternoon, folks. While many of you will be finishing up an average mid-January Monday in work, Ireland strike Stephanie Roche is right now rubbing shoulders with the world’s best players.
Having remarkably made the final three of this year’s Puskas Award for her spectacular finish for Pemaount United back in October 2013 (you’ve definitely seen it by now), the 26-year-old is attending the glamorous event in Zurich.
Roche is up against Manchester United and Dutch striker Robin van Persie and James Rodriguez, of Real Madrid and Colombia, and a winner will be announced in the coming hours.
She has already met one of the other finalists today, as well as legendary Italian Alessandro Del Piero. Incidentally, Van Persie won’t be in attendance as he injured himself during yesterday’s defeat to Southampton.
If the Dutchman does win, his compatriot Ruud Gullit will pick up the award on his behalf.
There is also the small matter of the Fifa Ballon d’Or prize, which Ronaldo will be aiming to win for the second consecutive year. He is up against old rival Lionel Messi, a former winner, and Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.
Here’s the trio earlier today:
Steph and her boyfriend Dean Zambra have arrived in the past few minutes:
You can watch the event live on Fifa’s YouTube channel, on the RTE Player from 5.30pm or on Sky Sports.
Another year, another dodgy suit from Lionel Messi.
Right, tell us once and for all… which of the three goals is the best?
Poll Results:
You can still vote for your favourite here but only for the next few minutes. So it’s your very, VERY last chance.
While Roche has travelled with her father, brother, boyfriend, PR manager/boyfriend’s sister and a small number of the Irish media, the rest of the family will be watching down the local — Brady’s of Shankill.
Here we go then. Your host for tonight is Sky Sports presenter Katie Abdo.
Abdo explains that there is just under an hour to vote for your favourite goal, before showing all ten that made the long list. The winner is due to be announced at 6.30pm.
Del Piero is out on stage to help announce the FIFPro Team of the Year. No surprises to hear it’s Manuel Neuer in goal, with Sergio Ramos, Philipp Lahm, David Luiz and Thiago Silva making up the back four. Yes, David Luiz.
The midfield trio is Angel Di Maria, Andres Iniesta and Toni Kroos, while Arjen Robben, Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo make up a frightening attack.
Jamie Carragher isn’t alone in expressing his surprise at one particular inclusion:
Next, Fifa president Sepp Blatter names 90-year-old Hiroshi Kagawa, a former Japanese international turned journalist, as the winner of this year’s Presidential Award.
In French, Blatter remembers the tragic events of the past week by adding: “Tonight, we are all Charlie”.
Vfl Wolfsburg’s Ralf Kellermann wins Women’s Coach of the Year. He uses his acceptance speech to pay tribute to Junior Malanda, the 20-year-old Wolfsburg player who died in a car crash this week.
And Germany’s Joachim Löw claims Men’s Coach of the Year after their World Cup victory in Brazil last summer.
The voting has officially CLOSED for the Puskas Award. We’re about five minutes away from finding out the winner. C’mon Steph!
Just when we think we are getting the Puskas Award winner announced…. the host introduces ‘a singer-songwriter from Switzerland’.
My lord, talk about filler!
The singer is finished now and we are seeing a montage previewing next year’s women’s World Cup.
Former Real Madrid star Christian Karembeu is on now to discuss the fight against Ebola.
That’s tough on Stephanie Roche but even to make the final three is an amazing achievement.
And just like that, the ceremony moves on. Manuel Neuer is now being interviewed on stage. Can we not have a few minutes to grieve??
Apparently Steph Roche was 9% short of winning.
Apparently 1.1 million people voted for Steph Roche, which shows how much support there was for the goal.
Argentina fell apart in the second half .. 10000 of their supporters in the stadium , tough to swallow . But in the end it’ll have no bearing World Cup wise .
@Limón Madrugada: going on the last 20 years of Argentina massively underachieving, i think you are right.
@Limón Madrugada: They’ll do nothing in the world cup. They’re the south American English
@Carl Johnson: yeah you’re probably right but my comment was more directed at the Spanish team . Beating Argentina in a friendly at home doesn’t mean anything for Spain’s WC possibilities …
@Limón Madrugada: I’d disagree tbh. They’ll go in with confidence
@Limón Madrugada: some of their football was fantastic last night
@Carl Johnson: They made it to the final last time out. Calling them England is a bit harsh.
If messi somehow drags this team to lift the world cup he will be the greatest of all time by a country mile. I’d love to see him do it.
Argentina squad is so unbalanced. Probably best forward options of any team in world football but defensively they are a mess.
@Gareth Kennan: the more I see of Argentina the more I’m impressed by messi dragging these bums to the World Cup, some great attacking talent but a mess in midfield and defense, even in attacking they have maybe too similarly minded players. Aguero in particular has never showed up for Argentina and never gets criticized for it as its all directed at messi, the less said about higuain the better
I couldn’t believe in the commentary on TV and again in this article how nobody has mentioned how badly at fault De Gea was for the Argentina goal. If it was one of the English keepers, they’d be slaughtered forevermore for it.
@Adrian O’Farrell: quite simply it’s a regular thing for English keeps and not for De Gea
@Johnny Bravo: True. Not saying he’s a bad keeper, far from it. But it’s like when you get to his level, your errors just get ignored. Which is wrong.