Chapter 285: 3 big news, and 1 not-so-important piece about the 07 World Footballer of the Year!

After the 17th round of the Premier League, there are only two games left in the first half of the Premier League cycle for 20 teams, and the traditional Premier League top four have also completed a small cycle.

其中曼联在强强对话中成绩最好，两胜一平。与之相比，阿森纳1胜2平较为接近；而利物浦则是2平1负、切尔西1平2负，都难与曼联抗衡。

Compared with last season, the strongest team in the semi-final round was Arsenal, but the Gunners at that time were neither weak against strong teams nor strong against weak teams, and lost too many points to weak teams.

Manchester United is different this season. Although they lost to Manchester City and Bolton, they won 15 of the other 12 games and are in a fierce momentum to grab points.

Among the top four, Manchester United is recognized as the team with the most balanced configuration.

Liverpool and Chelsea are both individual teams with poor overall coordination, while Arsenal relies mainly on teamwork but lacks individuals with significantly higher strength.

Manchester United has both a good overall and individual team. They can play well together and have players with outstanding personal abilities like Ronaldo and Rooney. In addition, Manchester United's age structure is one of the most reasonable among the top four, and its competitiveness is at its peak.

Sir Alex Ferguson's original expectation was to overtake Arsenal after the New Year, and the African Cup in January would give Manchester United an opportunity.

Chelsea was the most affected, as its central axis in the midfield was removed. Arsenal will also be missing Toure and Eboue. Fortunately, Togo did not qualify for the African Cup finals, so Adebayor does not have to leave. Manchester United, like Liverpool, is the team least affected.

However, before the New Year, Manchester United was temporarily suppressed by Arsenal;

Previously, because Arsenal had one game less, Manchester United had been able to take the top spot for a while with the advantage of goal difference. However, as Arsenal finished the make-up game, they surpassed Manchester United by 1 point before this round and regained the top spot.

In this round of strong dialogue, less than 4 hours after Manchester United's victory, Arsenal defeated Chelsea 1-0 at home with former Blues defender Gallas's last-minute goal. It was the first victory in the past 11 encounters between the two sides, surpassing Manchester United by 1 point and taking the top spot in the standings.

The battle for the Premier League title has entered a white-hot stage, but this tense situation has been temporarily diverted by three big news in the middle of the week...

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First of all, the news was released almost at the end of the league. The English Football Association officially announced that the Three Lions had a new owner: the 61-year-old Italian coach Capello took over the coaching of the England national team from McLaren!

Capello officially took over as the head coach of the England team. Compared with his predecessor McClaren who was promoted from assistant coach to head coach, the Italian coach is obviously a big shot with a considerable background.

His appointment also created three records for all previous England head coaches.

First of all, the age. Capello, 61, is the oldest coach in England's history.

After being fired by Real Madrid in the summer, Capello said that he might retire in a few more years. His energy level has been declining, making it difficult for him to cope with the day-to-day work of the club.

The national team coaching position, with a rhythm of playing more than ten games a year, is very suitable for him now. Moreover, experience is very important in coaching the national team, which Capello is rich in.

The second is the annual salary. According to British media reports, the English Football Association spared no expense this time and offered Capello 650 million pounds - 400 million pounds after tax, which also made him the highest-paid head coach in England.

In comparison, Eriksen's £400 million is a far cry, while McClaren's £250 million pales in comparison.

Last but not least, Capello has the most brilliant resume and is the biggest name among all the England coaches.

At AC Milan, Roma, Juventus and Real Madrid, Capello has won the league championship when he coached any team, a total of 9, and also won 1 European Cup.

Capello created a dynasty at AC Milan. In the 90s, he led AC Milan to a record of 58 unbeaten games, and the Dutch Three Musketeers became famous all over the world.

In the face of these brilliant resumes and honors, no matter which big name in the England team, I'm afraid they will lose confidence.

However, after taking office, Capello also told the media that coaching the England national team would be the last stop of the Italian coach's football career. At the same time, he also admitted that this would be the most challenging task in his career...

"A very sober old man, isn't he?" Ricardo couldn't help but complain in his heart after learning about the latest developments of the Three Cats Army from Rooney and Ferdinand's chat after training. Then Ricardo went to the airport to pick up Julian.

Julian had already informed him that she would come to the UK to attend an academic forum before Christmas, and would stop by Ricardo's apartment before returning home for the winter vacation.

In fact, the entire Manchester United team was supposed to have a group activity tonight, under the pretext of celebrating Christmas, but when Ricardo saw that it was organized by the player Ferdinand, he knew it was something bad.

Moreover, Ricardo can't drink alcohol and doesn't like playing spinach, so he asked for leave on the grounds that he had consumed too much energy in the last game and needed to rest.

Of course, I still can't lose face with my good friends, so I naturally said that Chicago's girlfriend number two has come and I want to sleep with her.

This reason was so reasonable that Rooney, Ferdinand, Carrick and others who originally didn't want to let him go all showed an expression that all men understand;

Then they let him go, and they all promised to tell the public that Ricardo had participated in the event, but he went home early to rest because of the intense physical fight with Gerrard, and they would never let his number one girlfriend know...

"Damn, if you guys hadn't said that last sentence, I would have almost believed it!" Ricardo spat secretly and thought of a rescue measure in case he was exposed, such as really booking a VIP relaxing massage at the physiotherapy center tonight.

After all, the battle with Liverpool was indeed very exhausting, far from being comparable to an ordinary match;

Ricardo can still easily handle a run of just over 1 meters, after all, he is young and recovers quickly. But the fierce battle with Captain Jay and Marco is not only physically tiring, but also mentally exhausting!

The high-frequency burst of output consumes a lot of mental energy, and the whole match requires full concentration, because if you are not careful, you will be ambushed...

Ricardo was a little listless during today's training. Ricardo had to drive to the airport to pick up Julian, and he had to fight in the evening, which was tiring. He also had to send Julian to Oxford for a meeting early tomorrow morning...

So how about talking to Julian about cryotherapy tonight?

Let her also contact Professor Connolly, so that she won't suspect me of favoritism after she hears the news from Liana. Oh, no, that's the order of the meeting arrangements.

……

While Ricardo and the famous female doctor were having a heated late autumn meeting with fierce verbal battles, two major news stories were brewing.

However, when Ricardo learned about these two pieces of news, he learned from the reporter who interviewed him after he sent Julian, who was wearing exquisite makeup, a dark blue women's suit and a long brown down jacket, to the train.

According to the Chinese way of thinking, important things will be discussed later, so let’s talk about things that are not so important first.

瑞士当地时间2007年12月17日晚上20时，2007年国际足联颁奖大典在苏黎世歌剧院举行。

The award ceremony announced the winner of this year's FIFA World Player of the Year award. Kaka was named FIFA World Player of the Year with 1042 points, becoming the first European Champions Cup winner to win the award since the award was created in 1991. Messi ranked second with 501 points and Ronaldo ranked third with 421 points.

Kaka is 25 years old, Ronaldo is 22 years old, and Messi is 20 years old. This is the first time that the top three "World Footballer of the Year" awards have been won by players with an average age of less than 17 since FIFA established the selection 23 years ago.

The rise of the new generation of players born in the 80s is becoming a trend in football. As Kaka said, "Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are two excellent players with incredible talents. They have a wonderful future ahead of them. They are both very young. In fact, I am only 25 years old, but I am already the oldest among the three of us.

This shows that a new generation of talent is beginning to emerge.”

The trend of younger top football stars began in 2004, when Ronaldinho, who won the World Footballer of the Year, was only 24 years old, one year younger than Kaka is now.

但这之前的13届评选中没有任何一位世界足球先生的年龄小于26岁，甚至马特乌斯和齐达内都是在30岁时才拿到这一奖项。唯一的例外的就是大，足坛外星人在1996年首次当选世界足球先生时只有20岁。

In fact, there were many superstars who became famous at a young age before Ronaldo, such as Pele, Maradona, Maldini, Owen and other players, but they all missed the FIFA World Footballer of the Year award for various reasons.

During the selection process of the World Footballer of the Year in the 90s, most of the players who were selected were already famous middle-aged players, represented by Van Basten, Zidane, Figo, Rivaldo and others. After all, Ronaldo-like geniuses were a minority at that time.

Of course, they are still a minority now, but they have only caught up with Ronaldinho, Kaka and the two most outstanding players...

However, the media believes that world football has begun to enter the era of the post-80s. When the two previous winners, Ronaldinho, who is 27 years old this year, were driven out of the top three in the FIFA World Footballer of the Year selection by a younger generation of new stars in just one season due to his declining form, who can say that the younger generation cannot become today's Messi and Ronaldo in the coming year?

Well, however, Old Li Qi laughed and said: If nothing unexpected happens, the two of them will win the championship in a row and make the other players despair!

Because unlike the European Ballon d'Or, which is scored by more professional media practitioners, the FIFA World Footballer of the Year is selected by the head coaches and captains of each country from a list of 30 candidates announced by FIFA, with the first choice getting 5 points, the second and third choices getting 3 points and 1 point respectively.

Therefore, compared to the European Ballon d'Or, which focuses more on the player's performance and technical and tactical play, the World Footballer of the Year pays more attention to the player's fame and reputation.

Of course, if the players continue to perform at the top level, they will naturally gain corresponding fame and reputation; however, the transfer of such performance and the accumulation of fame and reputation cannot be accumulated in just one or two seasons.

Therefore, the selection of the World Footballer of the Year in the past was more targeted at well-established middle-aged superstars, and few young players were able to come to the fore.

Although the development of media technology allows information to spread faster, if the top three superstars can continue to shine in major competitions, it will have a cumulative effect on subsequent selections.

For example, if Cristiano Ronaldo performed well this year, it would have a cumulative effect on next year's selection, or even the year after that, so it would be normal for Messi and Ronaldo to win consecutive titles.

In addition, since the ratings are made by the head coaches and captains of each country, the votes from some football-less developed regions are very limited;

For example, the head coaches and captains of national teams such as Tonga, Sri Lanka, Fiji, etc. may not even recognize all the 30 candidates and can only vote based on the players who impressed them the most.

But these countries with low rankings in the world football have a lot of votes, so Ricardo immediately thought that there is a lot of room for maneuver. The head coach and captain of the national team each hold 9 points, and at most the two can add up to 10 points for one person. With the increase and decrease of one point, the difference may be 20 points.

If you can privately operate 20 national teams that rank low, the difference could be as high as 400 points! This year, Kaka's total votes were only 1042 points, and FIFA has 203 member countries, so as long as you can get the first votes of 40 national teams, you'll basically be guaranteed...

But Ricardo also knew that he was not the only smart person, and the investors behind the stars had probably figured it out long ago;

This is why the World Footballer of the Year selection mechanism has been criticized for many years, but has not been changed and still exists. After all, in capitalist countries, the capital bosses are the fathers whose words count!

This year, even though Kaka did not participate in the America's Cup with the team, his points still exceeded the total of Messi and Ronaldo's points, which was worthy of everyone's expectations.

Starting from the sixth place Gerrard, the number of votes for the players began to drop below 100 points, with a clear gap with the top five players. The highest-scoring players in Italy, France, England and Spain are Pirlo, Henry, Gerrard and Torres respectively.

To Ricardo's surprise, he was also on the list this year, with 10 points, ranking 30th out of the 20-man list!

Ricardo was selected for the European Ballon d'Or last year, with two votes, ranking last at 20th place, but he was not selected for the World Footballer of the Year list, which places more emphasis on the reputation of world football. After all, last year Ricardo was a young man: Who are you?

But this year, with Ricardo joining Manchester United, he entered the top ten of the European Ballon d'Or, ranking 38th with 7 votes; he was even shortlisted for the FIFA World Player of the Year, and the result was not zero, but 10 points!

Although Ricardo later knew that Cannavaro gave him a third vote, the remaining 9 points came from other anonymous fans! Thank you so much! It would be great if the book written by the author could also have the support of so many fans!

I really want to thank Manchester United for the traffic boost they brought. They are indeed the world's top online celebrity team! If you can help Li Qi win the World Footballer of the Year, I will be your fan for life!

You know, it's not easy to be nominated for the World Footballer of the Year. For example, four players who were ranked high in the European Ballon d'Or were not nominated, namely Ibrahimovic, Fabregas, Totti and Robinho... Who made them not in the Internet celebrity team? Hehe!

In addition, based on the points of the FIFA World Footballer of the Year selection, if it is divided into goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards, and screened according to the number of votes in each position, then an 11-man lineup in the minds of coaches and captains from all over the world will also emerge.

这个最受支持的11人将组成一个4-2-3-1阵型。

The goalkeeper is: Italian national goalkeeper Buffon, 31 points.

The back four consisted of Cannavaro with 47 points, Essien with 20 points, Terry with 6 points and Marcos with 5 points;

The double defensive midfielders are Gerrard with 68 points and Pirlo with 57 points;

The three attacking midfielders are exactly the top three of this year's World Footballer of the Year, Kaka, Messi and Ronaldo;

The center forward is Drogba, the Warcraft, with 209 points!

@

However, the result of the World Footballer of the Year did not make Ricardo too emotional. After all, old Li Qi's memory had already told him the answer, and Ricardo also knew that he was shortlisted for the 30-man candidate list.

I just thought that as a nobody, I would be embarrassed to get zero votes like Thuram and Lahm, but I didn’t expect that I could get 10 votes in the end and escape from the bottom ten!

This is a little unexpected surprise, but it's nothing. After all, it's not in the top three yet. It's better to squeeze out one of Messi and Ronaldo, right?

What really made Ricardo's mouth open into an O shape was the third explosive news. The media reporter actually asked him directly whether Manchester United was involved in a rape case!

Watt? Manchester United players? QJ!? Are you sure those guys who make more money than the Wolf of Wall Street every week didn't forget to pay?

Fortunately, I went to a whore last night, oh no, the one I was with was Julian, and she pays me on time every month!

Boys really need to learn to protect themselves when they are outside...

……