The Best FIFA Football Awards (2017)

Less followed per capita, sure, but there's faaaaar more total people in Europe or in East Asia than in the USA.

Also, what Romario'sgurl said: USA voting is far less pro-Lloyd than you'd probably think.

 

I trust what you and Romario's girl say about US people non voting Lloyd by a landslide, but I still think that, if fan's vote tilted things in any way, it should have been pro-Lloyd. Fans vote is fundamentally different from players/coach/media votes: these ones are part of a panel, and their votes will be equally distributed per geographical area; fans vote is voluntary instead, so there's no guarantee that it will be geographically balanced.
For instance: Asia can have as many people as you like (ok, a finite quantity actually) but, with no Asian player in the shortlist, what's their business in voting? I want to bet that very few of all of these potential Asian voters bothered to actually cast their vote. Also: yes, people in Europe are more than people in USA (I wouldn't say "faaaaar more" in this case: just a little more than double), but what gives? with 7 European players in the ballot out of 10, it's very likely that European fans vote is diluted among all of these players, instead of concentrated on one. And if you think that European fans could collectively agree to cast their vote on the player they honestly think was the best one of the season in their continent... well, it goes to show that you don't know much about Europe and the national rivalry between European countries...

 

The Best finalists: FIFA Legends have their say

FTA:

Alex Scott
On The Best FIFA Women’s Player final nominees
I’m not surprised Lieke Martens is on there, she had a fantastic UEFA Women’s EURO and what the Netherlands went on to achieve this summer was absolutely fantastic. Everybody knows what Carli Lloyd can do, she’s one of the names that you mention when you speak about women’s football. The surprising one for me is the youngster Deyna Castellanos. With the [Puskas-nominated] goal she scored and for the award to be voted for by players, captains, fans – she’s deservedly on there. In fact, when you look at the three nominees, they deserve to be on there.


LOL. Mamadas. I knew there was a reason that I've never cared for this chick...

 

Also: don't underestimate the importance of the "less followed per capita" part. If women's football's difference in popularity is heavely skewed in different continents, the total population can end not mattering at all.

Let's make this fictional example: let's say there are 300.000.000 people in USA, and 10% of them follow women's football (it's fictional: I don't care if it's not true). This makes for 30.000.000 potential voters. Now, let's say there are 6.000.000.000 people in Europe + Asia (wildly overestimated, I'd say, but it doesn't matter either) and just 0.5% of them follow women's football: this would make for the same 30.000.000 potential voters.

Now: I am not so foolish to actually affirm that the difference in women's football popularity between New World and Old World is 10% to 0.5%. I am just noticing that if you factor in popularity and don't just count heads, it could happen that numbers are totally reversed. Yes, I willingly exaggerated, but not by so far, in my opinion: in the end, how many people could really care for women's football in China or India, that together make for more than half of Asian popolutation? Also: correct me if I am wrong, but I guess that, along with basketball, "soccer" is the sport that's more played by girls in USA (I don't think others, as softball, hockey, etc. can compete) and probably also the most popular for girls. Here in Europe, things are very different in many countries (for instance, I can tell you that in Italy, volleyball and basketball are way ahead of football as preferred choice for girls; in nordic countries handball is a strong rival; ans so on...).

Bottom line: sheer differences in population can become irrelevant, in a case where (for instance) 99% of these people are uninterested to women's football and wouldn't dream to vote for a Best Female Player award.

 

Americans tend to very very multi sports, so it's not really a question on which one is the most popular. when one sport's season is over, we just move on over to the next sport in season. Checking, our ladies won gold medals in water polo, ice hockey & team gymnastics even though our men's squads generally suck at it. Probably a sport you might of never heard off, sport, Lacrosse, all of a sudden has become in vogue over/

But if I was going to give one sport(or to others, activity) that stands out far & above in America for girls in terms of popularity, social standings, cliques, envy, it's(give you a hint)

 

No complaints from me about either winner. Both Wiegman and Martens were the right choices.

 

Carli was robbed!

 

At least Martens won... her competition should've been Harder and Kerr though not Lloyd and whatever her name is

 

922550833870336000 is not a valid tweet id

 

Don't overlook Castellanos.

If the award is *supposed* to award based on pure talent showcase, then I see no issue recognizing a mostly-youth player who is miles ahead of her peers and could easily be a top-level professional at the moment. She's been the star of multiple youth competitions and MVP of USA's D2 league this year. The only reason she hasn't gone pro is because she's going for a degree in the States.

Also, that whole bru-ha-ha about Rapinoe criticizing the selection and ESPN publishing the interview? Rapinoe and ESPN are really coming off as incredibly ignorant here in saying she hasn't played top-level international football - Denya debuted for VEN's senior team at age 15 in the 2014 Copa America.

 

Shockingly well-reasoned...repped. I found it quite curious that Rapinoe fixed her lips to call Deyna out her name and criticize her selection but was mysteriously silent about Carli's nomination.

Votes
http://resources.fifa.com/mm/docume...2/91/68/58/faward_womenplayer2017_neutral.pdf

 

Thanks for the data! Maro juuuussst misses out on the top three... Harder nearly there too. Close vote!

 

How everybody voted.

 

The fan vote for Castellanos must have been massive, since she was 9th overall for the other 75% of the votes.

 

Also being one of the ten nominees for GotY would probably contribute heavily to that.

 

I think it's safe to safe the system is messed up. At least a reasonable winner did end at #1 even if practically every other spot is messed up.

 

Probably splitting hairs, but I think the *system* itself isn't all that messed up - the problem is the various steps involved get confounded by semi-external problems. Whoever creates the initial shortlist of 10 nominees needs to do better, and the majority of the voters don't have enough access to footage/etc. to make informed decisions. I think the process itself is fairly sound - it certainly doesn't seem to go all wonky for the men's awards at all. The problem is an informational one and not a processional one.

 

Is it true what I seem to have read, that this year there will also be a "Ballon d'Or" with an only journalists' board, as the classic one from France Football was?

 

More about the hard comments by Megan Rapinoe on the nomination of Deyna Castellanos :

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...out-at-fifa-over-deyna-castellanos-nomination