Besides impressing vs USA, I don't remember Sinclair being substantially better than anything else on show this year, while Wambach wasn't even Hucles from 08's tournament either, with Japan's play constantly shutting down all the options most people would have said were very credible POTY nominees a few weeks back too. I like Sinclair, but suggesting she's simply validated by one game seems a bit odd, when Mbabi scored a hat-trick vs the best team in the world, but unlike most national teams, I really know nobody does that against Japan. So does that instantly make Mbabi a peerless forward? Yeah the Olympics are another senior global event, but nobody has been as dominant as Sawa, or as spectacular as Marta was previously. So I can only see this seasons FIFA award going to the player with the most name recognition, which is surely going to be Wambach.
Sorry for the length, but necron99, considering we see the sports only two full time national teams, qualifying for tournaments against nations that would struggle to ever see a Euro finals, I don't see how you can gauge the relative quality on show within UEFA, without actually observing the levels of football on show. France playing Israel or Wales creates lopsided box scores, but it rarely ends up looking like USA vs Guatemala or Cost Rica, because the French club and work commitments, go alongside a quick turnaround of a few days prep, that forces technical and tactical readiness over superior conditioning. Much like the long process of UEFA's men's qualifying, seeding and historical strength means your only going to get a few groups with more than one rival to the giants of the region, but this also gives good programs the opportunity to develop their style, and cultivate young talent, in ways simple cakewalks don't allow. Yes, France don't have to worry about WC and Euro tournament qualification right now, but that's because they correctly navigated the same supposedly cakewalk based systems UEFA has in place, to elevate themselves to a present position of global credibility. I think this all gets massively over looked in individual awards, but I'm not saying Sinclair or Wambach aren't valid options for recognition either, just because of their full time commitment to international football. It just seems weird to discredit players though, for succeeding on multiple modern fronts, in favour of soon to be outmoded systems, which only benefit a tiny niche within a much larger global community. So shouldn't the combination of consistent club and international performance mean a little bit more, when we already witnessed a domestic staring, WCL winning, Euro Championship leading goal machine like Inka Grings, lose out to a WPS big name Marta, even with a significantly more impressive years resume of work?
The Mbabi-Sincy comparison is a bit stretched, although I see your point. Also do think Wambach will win it for the reasons you mentioned. I think Sinclair should get 3rd; her semifinal display is as spectacular a performance there was all year. Sinclairimovic's performance was, to quote Ray Hudson, "as electrifying as a hairdryer thrown into a hot tub!"
Sinclair simply suffers with being Canadian, but put her in an alternate reality of rocking the stars and stripes, and you see her global name recognition skyrockit. I personally thought Tancredi was a better player than Sinclair for Canada during these Olympics, but I can totally understand why people would feel that Sinclair could feature more prominently in peoples minds, after seeing her go head to head with Wambach, to come out clearly on top with her all round play.
Tancredi played as well as she's ever played for Canada, but like you said, years down the road, people won't remember that nearly as much as Sinclair's hat trick.
I never said that club shouldn't be considered. As I said in my previous 2 messages, I don't think players who didn't play club should be immediately left off. I didn't think Marta should have won it over Grings. We also know that alot of it is popularity and name recognition. Marta will be on the short list and even likely to win because of her outstanding skills. But Marta has not had a good year, nothing compared to years past. There are coaches who get votes who don't even know that WPS is gone and Marta is playing in Sweden.
Tancredi played the best I have ever seen her. However Sinclair was being smothered and that freed up Tancredi quite a bit. Sinclair was also playing farther back to playmake as well. I feel that is part of the reason Wambach did even better this year then last. She had Alex Morgan actually drawing alot of defensive attention and even playmaking a bit. This freed her up some of the time. Wambach was obviously healthier and could run a bit more, but her skills aren't any better. She just wasn't smothered so much.
How do we judge the effectiveness of a player to ones team? Here's an example. If we look past her hat-trick, we see what she allowed Tancredi and other to do on the ball.
With the new platform the internet has provided the women's game, it's a disappointing thought that 2012 may still see votes going to players and coaches who think WPS exits and Marta's it's franchise star, lol. It's a shame they don't do a team of the year like the men. That would probably give a great consensus to the truth of the best players in the world right now.
I actually think Sinclair wasn't as smothered as she used to be prior to Herdman's takeover. Previously, when she played #9, she was easier to mark out of the game involving more-than-competent sides (France, Germany, USWNT). Now that she's a withdrawn forward/playmaker (like Ibra w/ Milan), yes she starts further away from goal, but she's more involved in the build-up, hence more dangerous. That's why I now call her Sinclairimovic (even it doesn't rhyme too well...). The quite-brilliant move from Herdman to move Sinclair down has allowed Tancredi more space up-top.
I guess Japan's Nadeshiko League should get more consideration: it's a healthy, competitive league, with big Japanese names, an handful of foreign players (1 S. Korean, 2 US at the moments; but Wambach herself had openly expressed the wish to join Sawa in INAC after Olympics) and and overall good show. How can japanese players get into contention, if their league is unfairly dismissed? Anyway, there are 5 japanese Nationals currently playing in european leagues (Ogimi in Potsdam, Ando in Duisburg, Kumagai in Frankfurt, Utsugi in Montpellier and Otaki in OL). If any of them should grow to the higher levels of international status, the line "excluding Japan of course" could lose its meaning. Kumagai is universally appreciated as one of the best and more classy CBs in the world (all comments at Olympics, including Kate Markgraf's, underlined that; Wambach herself highly respects her and publicly praised her): if a defender could ever had a chance to enter a POTY short list, it could be Kumagai. Yuki Ogimi (formerly Yuki Nagasato) had 3 goals at these Olympics and scored 9 overall with Nadeshiko Japan National Team this year. She always scored a lot with Potsdam too, and got better and better in the last 12 months. If her growth goes on and she becomes the real powerful, clinical striker she still hasn't been yet, I wouldn't consider it crazy if she was in contention too... That's just to say that there's some Japan in european leagues...
Because of the nature of what they do, I honestly hate defenders going into POTY nominations, but when you see the truly best defenders consistently and intelligently shut down the games most hyped attacking talents, I can only think OK, a nomination is fair enough. So saying this, I has to say that one or both of Japan's CB's deserve some love for regularly silencing every attacking player mentioned in this thread, with finesse and commitment that belies their relatively petit statures. Canada's star, silenced. Sweden's star, silenced. Brazil's stars, silenced. French stars, silenced. And then USA's uncompromising Wambach.....mute. All of these teams and their attacking stars, with POTY credentials in tow, all silenced by two CB's that do their job with minimal fuss, few if no bookings, and an extra bonus of impeccable abilities to play out of the back too. I wouldn't hand out any kind of Ballon D'or to a defender who simply destroy attacks, but sometimes classy defenders can bring a real quality to the game too, in ways that go beyond the positional archetype of simply physicality, aggression, and foul play. (But please, NO GOALKEEPERS EVER!) lol.
I personally wouldn't have a problem with that, but even in the men's game only Cannavaro has won the award as a defender in 23 years. Just like the women's game most of the winners have been strikers.
And for good reason too, as defending within the women's scene can still the most frustrating thing in the world to watch, watching every and any simple long ball regularly guarantee clear opportunities at goal. Ahhhhhhh, it's so annoying, lol, but at least Japan are one of the few teams that seem to be able to defend correctly, and then incorporate that into a quality possession game, demonstrating to the others how to improve their current defensive woes if they really want to. When you can't rely on pace and power, the quality of the Japanese defending is clear to see, but I really think the bonus of quality intelligent ball skills does make any nomination easier to swallow for any player, in any position.
I quite agree with you that both Japanese CBs could rightly deserve a POTY nomination, if defenders get any chance at it, because not only Kumagai had a wonderful tournament, but Iwashimizu has a record of erasing from the pitch the likes of Sinclair, Schelin, Marta, Delie and so on. That wasn't exactly the point of my post though. The points were two in fact: 1) Nadeshiko L-League shouldn't be dismissed when looking at players' achievements in club play (by the way, some rumours say that the boss of the last-to-one team in Nadeshiko League, Speranza Osaka Takatsuki, wants to sign a lot of high-profile USWNT stars, but at the moment it's indeed just a rumour ) ; 2) it isn't true that looking at european leagues puts japanese players out of contention. Yes, the most celebrated japanese stars and the ones having the most reasonable chances at POTY (Sawa and Miyama) played last two seasons in Japan, but some very good Japanese National Team members play in Europe and so european leagues (both national leagues and WCL) could factor in for them. For the sake of this discussion, I'll just concentrate on the two names I mentioned above: 1) Yuki Ogimi was Japan's high-profile striker for Nadeshiko Japan at these Olympics; she scored more than 10 goals (don't remember exactly how many) for 1.FFC Turbine Potsdam in Bundesliga (arguably the most competitive league in the world right now) in season 2011-2012, winning the league with her club; she was in the WCL semi-final and scored some goals in that competition too. 2) Saki Kumagai was probably the best CB in the world at these Olympics; she played WCL final (arguably the top showcase for european club play) with 1.FFC Frankfurt (although Frankfurt's coach Sven Kahlert often didn't start her or started her as a volante MF during the season... ). Now I am not saying that these two players should receive a POTY nomination this year: I guess the point of this discussion was especially about the future (and so season 2012-2013 and 2013 POTY); if the questions were: can european club play be a factor for POTY? And, if yes, this excludes Japanese top players from the competition? Well, I'd say that Ogimi's and Kumagai's cases show that it doesn't. Maybe (or even probably) they won't be nominated for 2012 POTY, but I guess that their club achievements show that japanese players can shine in Europe and get their chances at POTY this way. Or they can get their chances in Japan, why not? But that's my other point, that I am not going to elaborate here...
Ballon D'or is an award for the best player in the world not for the best team in the world, and Marta is still the best player and has scored plenty and she will win it againt. []__[]
Meh.... That is kind of funny since she is on the best, most player stacked team in Sweden. She has not had a good year. She didn't do anything in the Olympics. It isn't for the "best player", it is for the player who had the best year. She doesn't deserve it this year.
Although I liked many japanese players, I'd say Wambach or Sinclair for overall Olympic performance. I am afraid Sawa didn't do enough to make inertia (that is anyway historically a powerful force in POTY) work for her, although she made the Olympic final with her NT...
I think Sinclair had the biggest individual performance of the year with the hat-trick vs USA in the Semifinal. I am not sure if that is enough to overcome the rest of the great Olympics from Wambach. Yes I know Sinc got the golden boot. We could add some of the women from Lyon who did good things through the whole season as well as the Champions League and Olympics. But there are so many of them together on that team does one truly stand out? Or would it be mostly a team award as some such as puertorricane complain about? In the past Schelin stood above, but I don't have the details for this year, and her Olympics wasn't too good. Many of the others had decent Olympics but not great, with many opportunities not seized.
I don't have any issue with the point you make Blissett, but this something I really don't get, when it was perfectly clear that even Melissa Tancredi had a better overall Olympics than Sinclair or Wambach, within a rather bland Olympic tournament for individual stars. Sinclair may be a better player than Wambach, but she only had one good game in a year that went by without any club football for either candidate, as a star like Camille Abily continues to be an immense presence for both her successful club and highly impressive national team. Obviously though, with name recognition being what it is in the women's vote, this year Abily doesn't have a prayer next to a losing hat-trick, and a long history of rose tinted sentiment, but hopefully this will/has to change in the future.
Until there's more parity in the French league, for most of us it just looks like Lyon giving a beat down to much weaker teams. I just can't take the competition seriously if the top team has been beating their opponents by an 8-0 average score in their first 3 games this year. Perhaps if someone like Abily came into the Olympics and took the competition by storm I'd be more convinced of her league accomplishments, but apparently not even her own coach thought she was good enough to start. As usual it was the Wambach's and Sinclair's that rose above the rest in this tournament.
I would venture to say that Morgan has a better shot than Wambach, actually.... Yes, Wambach scored more goals at the Olympics, but one could argue Morgan scored more important goals. (Heck, if this discussion is focusing on just the Olympics - which it shouldn't - then Lloyd would be your PotY.) Morgan's also looked much better technically, both in the Olympics and in all the friendlies played before and since. (Goals for the year are pretty even - Wambach's scored 12, one on a penalty, and so has Morgan, though none of hers were from the spot.) The sad thing is that none of the olympic stars (six of the top eight goalscorers were US or CAN) have played in a domestic league this year... If you're looking at France's domestic league, then yes I don't think any of the Lyon players "deserve" recognition from there. However, take UWCL into account, and then Abily and Le Somner stick out more. Add in EURO13 qualifying, and Thomis (and da Mbabi from Germany) also get into the picture.
I share your view that Morgan has played a bigger role than Wambach this year. However, I do believe that the voters take past seasons into consideration when choosing the player of the year. Morgan may get 3rd place this year, but my gut tells me that it'll be Wambach and Sinclair 1-2.