Henry Voted FIFA World Player of The Year [Rumour]

[Its only Ray Parlour]

There was an article in the News Of The World today, which states that FIFA have leaked the results of the poll to the Italian press.

The poll showed that Henry topped the voting by a number of points. The voters are amongst the World's top recognised coaches and the award is itself recognised as a more prestigous award than that of the Ball'on D'or (European Player of the year, award by journalists from several nations) which Henry is also said to be one of the favourites for. The award is set to be given around late December, i believe, the article doesn't actually say.


The article also says that Robert Pires (jokingly?!) stated that the award shouldn't have gone to Henry as the person who showed be awarded to should have won a major competition of some sort that year. He apparently said it should have gone to Andrei Shevchenko. Henry is also quoted as saying that personal awards don't interest him as he wants to win trophies with his team rather than scoop individual honours.

So there you have it....Henry FINALLY recognised as the World's BEST. First time ever for a Gooner!

Up Arsenal! Long live King Henry!

http://eur.news1.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com/xp/empics/20031101/15/2374030275.jpg

[Its only Ray Parlour]

Sorry, forget to add that Pires said Henry should have won it last year instead of Ronaldo.

[aloisius]

FIFA’s award is not more prestigious than France Football’s. All the national team coaches in the world get to vote. That produces some hilarious picks, like the late Lobanovsky voting for Carlos Alberto, the Costa Rican coach voting for Herman Medford, and the Croatian coach Blazevic always voting only for Croatian players

[Its only Ray Parlour]

Hilarous results maybe, but then again those players never win the awards. And i doubt the likes of Wenger, Hitzfeld, Ferguson, Lippi, Capello, Ancelotti, Zaccheroni etc, would all get it wrong.

The European player of the year IS a prestigious title (no doubt) but in my opinion being voted as the World Player Of The Year by professional coaches is more so than by sports writers.

Anyway, Henry is in the running for that too.

[Its only Ray Parlour]

Anyway lets not get away from the point of this. Henry has finally got the recognition he deserves (if the reports in Italy are correct).

And whatsmore we can stick it too the Manc's who believe van Nistelrooy is the second coming. hehe :D

[aloisius]

I’m not certain about this but I think that NT coaches are the only ones that vote in FIFA’s poll. Even if they allow some of the top coaches in Europe, they would be outnumbered by coaches of a lot of smaller countries who don’t have a strong contact with the world game.
A lot of those people will be voting on name recognition. EPL is the best promoted league worldwide, Henry constantly destroys it’s defenders, and that might be the only thing a lot of these coaches see.

[Its only Ray Parlour]

You are wrong top European coaches are given a vote. Considering this award hasn't gone to a player playing in England i believe, i would suggest you were wrong that that were all the national coaches will see. Also Henry was in the top 5 for the overall golden boot award last season not taken into account the number of assists he provided for teammates (20!). Never mind his goal record for France over the past year. There was an article on the 4thegame website which stated that taking into account assists Henry was the most proficient forward in world football this year by some distance.

Heny was also the major reason behind France winning the only major international tournament this year. Aside from the statistics name me one player who has performed to a higher level than Henry over the past year.

It's funny how this award suddenly becomes discredited when Henry is choosen as the winner.

[jegerpenge]

henry actually had 23 assists in all competitions. speaking of assists, he had three this weekend as well. it's too bad he didn't get a goal of his own also. and you can look at statistics. henry was by far the best player in the world last season. i looked up all the stuff comparing RvN (since all the mancs think he is a golden god) and henry. when i posted it last time, i got some argument that RvN is still a great player because he may not get assists, but he draws defenders with him wherever he goes. i guess this is opposed to henry who is never marked because he is considered harmless. is that why he had three birmingham defenders on him for the entire game this weekend and still managed to get three assists and some great runs in the area resulting in shots on goal. jesus jesus jesus. why does henry have to suck so much? why can't we have a cherry-picking cheat like RvN. why why why? oh the humanity :)

[Spartak]

Originally posted by its_only_ray_parlour

It's funny how this award suddenly becomes discredited when Henry is choosen as the winner.
Quit your bitching. It's discredited because consistently every year the best player is not chosen as the winner. This year it was Nedved, last year it was Ballack. Although I don't think Henry should win this award, I'm at least glad the award didn't go to Ronaldo.

[jegerpenge]

this was my original post. a lot of you have seen it before, but i'm proud of myself :)

let's do a little number crunching. i know stats are stupid, but hopefully this will shut you up. ok, let's look at goals. total, henry had 32 last season, RvN had 44. looks like RvN has henry beat. but if you look at goals resulting from penalties, RvN had 12 goals from pens, while henry had only 3. now, i know a goal is a goal, but there are some that you are just expected to score. although, as the almighty dumbass ruud showed us, expectations can fall short...or slam off of crossbars for that matter. so in total goals, RvN leads henry by 12 goals. in goals from actual play RvN only leads henry by 3, that is 29 to 32. here is the big difference. according to 4thegame.com, henry led the league in assists with 23. that's 23 goals that henry created using his skill. while the list stopped at 6, RvN wasn't on it anywhere, which can only have me assume that he had less than 6 assists in the season. so, i'll give him the benefit of the doubt and give him 5. here are my results if i add all goals and assists. the first results are from open play, the rest is including pk's in the total. just food for thought:

Henry with pens: 56 goals

RvN with pens: 49 goals

Henry goals: 53 goals

RvN goals: 38 goals

wow, it really is too bad henry can't do any better than this. i mean, we should really think of getting a new striker to replace him. we'd do better with a statue of him on the pitch. i think that these results show the difference between a quality GOALSCORER and a quality PLAYER

it's also funny that in the thread that i posted this, a certain "prawn sandwich" said that gael clichy, aliadiere and cygan don't count as cover. i think he was proved wrong this weekend. clichy and cygan had a great game, and i don't feel worried at all about our attack when aliadiere is put in the game. he may not have scored yet, but he has performed well up til now. and i disagree that nedved was the best player. ballack, last year would have been a good choice, but henry was by far the best player this year

[Its only Ray Parlour]

Originally posted by Spartak
Quit your bitching. It's discredited because consistently every year the best player is not chosen as the winner. This year it was Nedved, last year it was Ballack. Although I don't think Henry should win this award, I'm at least glad the award didn't go to Ronaldo.

Bitching? not quite. For what exactly? i agree Ballack should probably have won the award for his overall performances in 2002. Ronaldo's award was more sentimental than anything although he did nearly carry Inter to the title when he eventually came back from injury, win the world-cup with the highest goals tally seen for over a decade in the competition. Nedved however is a very different matter as that is purely a matter of opinion. Nedved wasn't even individually the best player in the Serie A, that award went to Adrian Mutu. He was arugably the most impressive performer in the champions league but many people would say van Nistelrooy deserves a shout too, Juventus also rotated alot throughout the season and although Nedved played in alot of the big-games he was not always available. This season his impact has been far less and he has not made the contribution he had done before hand mainly due to the increased competition in the Juve team Marco Di Viao for instance is now shouldering much of Nedved's attacking role. This matter is not by any means clear-cut. Personally i believe Juve would have swept the board if Henry had been in the team in place of Nedved. Do you disagree?

In my opinion, in terms of overall consistency and performance Thierry Henry has been the outstanding performer of 2003. His continued importance to his team(s), his overall play, his goals and assists and his current standing in World football mean that he should be awarded with it.

And if this award is as corrupt as you say, there is still the European Player of the year award, so lets see if Nedved gets that.

[Its only Ray Parlour]

Originally posted by jegerpenge


Henry with pens: 56 goals

RvN with pens: 49 goals

Henry goals: 53 goals

RvN goals: 38 goals

wow, it really is too bad henry can't do any better than this. i mean, we should really think of getting a new striker to replace him. we'd do better with a statue of him on the pitch. i think that these results show the difference between a quality GOALSCORER and a quality PLAYER



Add this season's tally and international goals scored this year and your laughing.........

[jegerpenge]

Originally posted by its_only_ray_parlour
Add this season's tally and international goals scored this year and your laughing.........

you can do it, i'm too lazy. i'm also not pissed off enough to update it

[Spartak]

Originally posted by its_only_ray_parlour
Bitching? not quite. For what exactly? i agree Ballack should probably have won the award for his overall performances in 2002. Ronaldo's award was more sentimental than anything although he did nearly carry Inter to the title when he eventually came back from injury, win the world-cup with the highest goals tally seen for over a decade in the competition. Nedved however is a very different matter as that is purely a matter of opinion. Nedved wasn't even individually the best player in the Serie A, that award went to Adrian Mutu. He was arugably the most impressive performer in the champions league but many people would say van Nistelrooy deserves a shout too, Juventus also rotated alot throughout the season and although Nedved played in alot of the big-games he was not always available. This season his impact has been far less and he has not made the contribution he had done before hand mainly due to the increased competition in the Juve team Marco Di Viao for instance is now shouldering much of Nedved's attacking role. This matter is not by any means clear-cut. Personally i believe Juve would have swept the board if Henry had been in the team in place of Nedved. Do you disagree?

In my opinion, in terms of overall consistency and performance Thierry Henry has been the outstanding performer of 2003. His continued importance to his team(s), his overall play, his goals and assists and his current standing in World football mean that he should be awarded with it.

And if this award is as corrupt as you say, there is still the European Player of the year award, so lets see if Nedved gets that.
Mutu was not Serie A's best player last year. Nedved was. And you obviously haven't seen Nedved play at all this season. He is even better than he was last year. He sets up almost all of Juve's goals and he scores a ton of goals for a midfielder. Plus he led the Czechs to qualify for Euro 2004 ahead of Holland. And I'm not saying this in any biased way either. In fact, I'm growing more and more to hate the way Nedved flops around on the ground. But he is currently the best player in the world at the moment, imo. And to say that if Juve had Henry instead of Nedved they would be better is ludicrous. Nedved is much more than an attacker. He is a combination of Gattuso and Pires. He attacks great but he also fights for the ball. I suggest you watch Nedved play this season before you say he isn't playing good.

[Its only Ray Parlour]

In the games i have seen i think Di Viao has been the difference, i didn't say he wasn't playing well i just don't think he is playing as well. My opinion. He totally dominated the big-games last season, this year Nedved hasn't done that in the same way. In each of the game's i've seen Di Viao has come up with the goods when Juve needed it. Especially against Milan a few weeks ago.

I'm fully aware how hard a worker Nedved is, but the system and the player Juve have at their disposal i believe Henry could easily be accomadated into a similar role on the left of the midfield/attack without losing any stability defensively and be just as succesful if not more potent threat than Nedved.

The Czech Republic are a quality side, with or without Nedved (he obviously makes a huge contribution don't get me wrong) and the Dutch team they were up-against were shown to be underachievers before they woke up after getting beaten by Scotland of all countries. France got through an admittedly easy group but again Henry managed to shine scoring and providing numerous goals along the way, and the Confederations Cup competition as maglined as it was, showcased Henry's skills as a player (and person...The Marc Vivien Foe affair) and led France to victory in that tournament.

And Adrian Mutu was Seria A Player's Player of The Year.

Nedved is a world-class performer but for me it is nowhere near as clear-cut as you were intially making out and if we eventually get any Manc's reading this i'm sure they'll tell you van Nistelrooy deserves the award. It's a matter of opinion and mine is Henry has been the best player around in 2003. (Even with rose-tinted glasses firmly off)

[jegerpenge]

Originally posted by Spartak
Mutu was not Serie A's best player last year. Nedved was. And you obviously haven't seen Nedved play at all this season. He is even better than he was last year. He sets up almost all of Juve's goals and he scores a ton of goals for a midfielder. Plus he led the Czechs to qualify for Euro 2004 ahead of Holland. And I'm not saying this in any biased way either. In fact, I'm growing more and more to hate the way Nedved flops around on the ground. But he is currently the best player in the world at the moment, imo. And to say that if Juve had Henry instead of Nedved they would be better is ludicrous. Nedved is much more than an attacker. He is a combination of Gattuso and Pires. He attacks great but he also fights for the ball. I suggest you watch Nedved play this season before you say he isn't playing good.

according to planetfootball.com he has scored 5 goals in 13 apps this season. hardly a ton. and we're saying he doesn't play well, not "good". that's not good grammar

[fischetts]

5 goals in 13 appearances is pretty swell for a midfielder. That's more than the three strikers chosen by England for their last friendly have this whole season

You may say he has not been Juve's deciding facotr this season, but since the award is largely based on last season, i think this is somewhat irrelevant.

Now lets get serious here.

Lauren "We can beat Real Madrid."

HA! Maybe if the Gunners had Nddved. Did anyone on this forum even watch the second leg of the CL semifinals? If you think Henry could've dispossessed Real's players, you are joking. He was quite the difference maker in that game, probably one of the most crucial games of last season.

Oh yea, and to whoever said that Henry could play Nedved's position, remember he played there for Juve before he was sold to Arsenal for his mediocre performances. Henry is world class noiw and maybe he could fill the position now, but he couldn't before.

One last comment: Zidane has been replaced by Nedved at Juve. No one thought Juve could replace him. But some actually say Nedved is better because he doesn't disappear from games like Zidane did. Now ask yourself this question, could Henry replace Zidane? Doubtful. I realize Zidane doesn't do miuch tackling anymore, but when he was at Juve he did some more. Nedved does some right now too. I doubt Henry could be a complete midfielder like the above to if he was asked.

Thank you.

[Its only Ray Parlour]

No wonder you had to delete your first post if all you could come up with was stupid insults and a lot of irrelevance. The second attempt is none too clever either.

[jegerpenge]

Originally posted by fischetts
5 goals in 13 appearances is pretty swell for a midfielder. That's more than the three strikers chosen by England for their last friendly have this whole season

You may say he has not been Juve's deciding facotr this season, but since the award is largely based on last season, i think this is somewhat irrelevant.

Now lets get serious here.

Lauren "We can beat Real Madrid."

HA! Maybe if the Gunners had Nddved. Did anyone on this forum even watch the second leg of the CL semifinals? If you think Henry could've dispossessed Real's players, you are joking. He was quite the difference maker in that game, probably one of the most crucial games of last season.

Oh yea, and to whoever said that Henry could play Nedved's position, remember he played there for Juve before he was sold to Arsenal for his mediocre performances. Henry is world class noiw and maybe he could fill the position now, but he couldn't before.

One last comment: Zidane has been replaced by Nedved at Juve. No one thought Juve could replace him. But some actually say Nedved is better because he doesn't disappear from games like Zidane did. Now ask yourself this question, could Henry replace Zidane? Doubtful. I realize Zidane doesn't do miuch tackling anymore, but when he was at Juve he did some more. Nedved does some right now too. I doubt Henry could be a complete midfielder like the above to if he was asked.

Thank you.

two completely different players. at juve, they had a total striker (henry) playing in a midfield position. it took a class manager to figure out where henry would be most affective. it's just wrong to compare. pires had 2 more goals than nedved with 16 in all competitions in 4 less appearances. in my opinion nedved was no where near the greatest player in the world this year. it has to be henry. 23 assists and 32 goals? that's incredible. he should win based only on his assists, but his goals are just icing on the cake

[Its only Ray Parlour]

Originally posted by fischetts
5 goals in 13 appearances is pretty swell for a midfielder. That's more than the three strikers chosen by England for their last friendly have this whole season

What exactly is your point here? How do you know i'm English? Robert Pires has scored 5 goals this season too. It's hardly ground breaking stuff.

You may say he has not been Juve's deciding facotr this season, but since the award is largely based on last season, i think this is somewhat irrelevant.

It's only irrelevant if it doesn't back-up your side of the argument. If the argument is who has been a consistently high-class performer then it is very relevant. And Henry has demonstrated this last season, in the summer and this season also.

Now lets get serious here.

Lauren "We can beat Real Madrid."

HA! Maybe if the Gunners had Nddved.

You're a comedic genius. Everyone else has managed to play this with a straight bat and you come on here with insults. Well done.


Did anyone on this forum even watch the second leg of the CL semifinals? If you think Henry could've dispossessed Real's players, you are joking. He was quite the difference maker in that game, probably one of the most crucial games of last season.

Not to belittle his performance but where exactly was he in the first leg? When you lost? and i seem to have missed the moment when Nedved went in goal to save Figo's penalty or made Raul and Zidane miss absolute sitters.

If you think Henry could've dispossessed Real's players, you are joking.

What kind of deranged statement is this? Are Real Madrid players somehow immune to being tackled now?...Oh..except by Nedved of course. Someone's the joke here and it isn't me.

He was quite the difference maker in that game, probably one of the most crucial games of last season.

He also managed to negate everything he did in that match by stupidly getting booked for kicking Mcmanaman and thus costing his team the ability to play their usual game in the final and ultimately costing them the chance of winning.

Oh yea, and to whoever said that Henry could play Nedved's position, remember he played there for Juve before he was sold to Arsenal for his mediocre performances. Henry is world class now and maybe he could fill the position now, but he couldn't before.

If you think that's any kind of rational defence then you're as big an idiot as the muppet who sold Henry to Arsenal. What a stupid stance. So are you telling me Nedved would have been able to do the same role he is today 5 years ago? i very much doubt it. He wasn't half as effective then, as he is today and he has admitted that himself in World Soccer Magazine recently. The award is granted for this year's performances, not that of 5 years ago, when Henry was 21 and used as if he were a Zambrotta clone. Nevermind the fact that Juve would have Henry back in a hearbeat. No-one said he could do Nedved's job, i said he could do a job similar with less defensive responsibilty as Juve already have players in their squad that they can use to carry that load. I think you might be plesantly surprised by the results if it ever happened. Thankfully you'll never get to see that come to fluition. Well not unless he's bending 25 yard freekicks into the top corner past buffon again.

One last comment: Zidane has been replaced by Nedved at Juve. No one thought Juve could replace him. But some actually say Nedved is better because he doesn't disappear from games like Zidane did. Now ask yourself this question, could Henry replace Zidane? Doubtful. I realize Zidane doesn't do miuch tackling anymore, but when he was at Juve he did some more. Nedved does some right now too. I doubt Henry could be a complete midfielder like the above to if he was asked.

Good luck to those who think Nedved is better than Zidane, i think they need it. How many Champions Leagues has Zidane won with Juve and Real Madrid?, and how many has Nedved won? Look he is a great effective player but he is no Zidane. The system Juve play means they don't need a player of Zidane's specific qualities they require a lesser player who can do dog-work as well as find his or others way to goal. Juve have changed since Zidane left, and if Nedved had been in that Juve side that flopped in the CL twice successively in the first round then i very much doubt Nedved would have made any difference.

Henry and Zidane...are different players. It simply wouldn't be his role to replace him. He can do some of the things Zidane can do and he can do other things Zidane can't. But he is not a direct replacement for him so it's a stupid comparison in the first place. Nedved on the other hand is versatile but his primary position is on the left-side of Juve's midfield in a slightly advanced position. I believe Henry if required could play this position as he often does but with more license to float. Therefore he could theoretically replace Nedved. I would much prefer him to play up-top though where he is devestating.

I think Nedved has been great in 2003 but IMO Henry has been better.