Long live the Prinzess: the 2011 FIFA awards

Could be the angle or the regressive vision of a certain poster.. Kidding aside, I think it's her shape.

She looks really nice here. I've often seen her in pictures and thought that looked older than what she is. This look really becomes her.

I give her a 9 for effort and an 8 for overall presentation.

possibly it is her shape. and she's twisting a bit. She's another that you don't get many pics of sans ponytail. Looks nice w/ her hair down.

Recent popularity suggests Sawa's biggest threat to her new found status is Morgan and Solo factor. Votes for those two players made this years victory for Sawa far closer than it should have been.

Rightly Sawa won, but look at the stellar season she had to produce just to get her nose ahead of her peers. Without mentioning her club level achievement's, as a all round CM presence, she dragged her national team through a tricky qualification process, propelling them to finals victory against nations that had huge physical and preparatory advantages, seeing out the year with a top spot in Olympic qualification too. Yet even with this level of superb consistency, Sawa still had plenty of votes place her behind people who did considerably less last season.

If Japan do a Germany and medal after WWC victory, I could see Sawa placing high in the next FIFA POTY, but I don't see her getting the same attention she attained this year. Journalists, players, and coaches, still favour the girls from the most high profile teams, so hopes of attaining recognition, or winning the POTY, would more likely rest on how poorly or well the star names of Brazil and USA do.

POTY will be far more controversial, possibly even more interesting, once the last of the perennial POTY all retire from national team duty. Without the old school favourites, Marta's name recognition and skill will have to battle with the popularity and pout of Solo .

I have read countless comparisons of female players to various high profile male equivalents, but for all Wambach's effectiveness, her now global acclaim would seem a bit silly if she were more correctly compared to Jan Koller.

In Brain McBride the U.S. system has already produced a quality player similar to Wambach, but in my opinion with less mobility than McBride, Wambach's play has a far more one dimensional resemblance to that of Mr man mountain Jan Koller.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G38D9jaGiw"]Jan Koller-Il devasto - YouTube[/ame]

Well, I wouldn't say that 28% of votes vs 17% is just getting the nose ahead on a photo-finish race, but I agree she should have won by a way wider margin (let's say similar to Sasaki's one, around 50%).

Curiously, as I noted above, not only obvious Marta and Wambach, and less obvious Morgan and Solo took votes away from Sawa, but another important rival was... Miyama. Miyama, obvioulsy is a ultre-legitimate choice, and she would have deserved top-3 status for sure in my opinion, but the strange fact is that many people voting Miyama in top 3 didn't also vote for Sawa in top 3, as if voting two japanese players in top 3 was too much or wasn't enough cool. Sure enough there were also people voting Sawa 1st and Miyama 2nd, but if you read the ballot accurately you'll find that probably most people that voted for Miyama didn't also vote for Sawa. That's a shame: no-one clings an eye when they have to vote 2 (or even 3, it also happened in this ballot) US players, but way less people dared to vote for 2 japanese players.

Should ever Japan win the gold medal at Olympics, it could happen that Miyama and Sawa have to battle each other for votes in the next POTY...

Now you are being badddddddd........... but the play at 1:40 on that video is unbelievable.

Badddd, hmmmm. Depends on how bias people are in assessing what she brings to her national team versus the wider sport as a whole.

While Wambach has been the decisive figure in many important USWNT moment's, in the overall history of the game, her particular type of skill set has never really been widely respected as the best vision of how the game can be played. I'm thinking no man or woman, no matter how large, powerful, or effective, has ever been lauded as the sports best player based on solely winning headers with a little hold up play. So why is this the opposite case for Wambach right now?

Wambach is no doubt a fantastic athlete, and a quality competitor, but does she really represent the games best player, showcasing the true nature of technical/tactical progression seen throughout the women's game as a whole? The big target player is a highly respectable role when it's utilised effectively, but these players never seriously get near winning global recognition as the sports best player.

Like a Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Drogba in the men's game, Michelle Akers and Biggie Prinz were both big physical girls who moved wider perceptions forward in how the big target player can operate around the field. Like Koller though, Wambach lacks the all round ability of the sports other very best big target players, but still remains highly effective at every level in which she plays. So while my opinion may court controversy, is simple effectiveness all that a modern era female player needs to be potentially crowned world POTY?

In fact, the only moment when I saw Wambach being dangerous with something different from her headers, was the shot in the first half of the WWC final that ended hitting the crossbar. It was a very good shot: should Wambach have scored with it, maybe she could have claimed not-only-headers-technical-coolness... But it went differently.

Hey Wambach's always dangerous, just ask all the girls she's left with stitches while getting nowhere near the ball. Only gangland soldiers would have better records for creativity in destroying knees throughout their careers . Seriously though, it was a heck of a screamer she hit on to the bar in the WWC final. She's always been capable of doing that kind of stuff too, but she's rarely able to create the space to do it on a regular basis.

Maybe she's chosen to dumb down her style due to fitness issues, but it's more likely that the U.S. coaching staff have simply gone back to a far more direct approach to harness the teams last advantage, it's athleticism. Either way, it's the obvious one dimensional physical play that got her into the individual elite for 2011, so we should probably expect more of the same in 2012 too.

Wambach is very efficient. After the WC semi-final the French coach said the only player that troubled us was Wambach with her physical power. Our defenders couldn't deal with her basically.

This article says that two persons were needed to help Sawa prepare for the Ballon d'Or Gala.

http://sports.ndtv.com/football/news/item/183801-japan-skippers-tale-to-look-good-at-ballon-dor

What is not clear to me is that, in the article, Sawa says that she was helped to dress and make-up from early in the morning... But didn't she attend at the press-conference at 14:00, obvioulsy still not dressed in kimono?

Anyway, I like the strange reflection of the trophy on Sawa's face in the article's picture...

Sawa's Obi sash from the back looks like it was tied using principles of quantum mechanics to get all it's proportions just right. It's a thing of beauty, but it's also definitely more than a one women routine to put that whole Kimono on correctly.

The JFA were not f*cking around with making positive and professional first impressions on that particular night, so I doubt Sawa really had any other option than to accept the helpers and smile