I can't tell you why Abby Wambach wasn't nominated. That's up to FIFA. I can tell you that Mia Hamm has done very little this year by herself to merit being named Player of the Year. the USWNT has won all their tournaments, sure. But Mia wouldn't have been a starting player in Marta's club team in 2004, at least in a majority of the games played. Individually, Mia Hamm's best days are behind her. And why not? She has been the very best player for years and years, and even she realizes that Marta is the new queen of women's soccer. Once the rest of the Brazil WNT get to play in foreign more competitive leagues, I'm sure the victories will start to come for Brazil as well. You also need to start watching the games more closely, to see that the "dirty playing" is actually not typical for Brazil. the USWNT is just as bad. Just watch the matches, you'll see.
I agree that Wambach is by far more deserving than the 3 on this list this year. She has shown not just the skill but also the consistency, the positive attitude, and the mental strength and toughness. She has so often been that one player that makes the difference for her team winning or losing. But there will be many more FIFA years to come for Abby. I think these awards are a bit silly anyway. Any why are the nominees always the strikers? Defenders and midfielders are just as important, but constantly get overlooked. The people who vote for these things should know that. Very few people can be voted the "best" at anything, especially in soccer. There are usually a group of 3,4,5 players who are dominant -- in different ways. Yes, there are some cases where a players bursts through and makes a shocking impression on the world, as well as makes the difference for their team, like Prinz last year. But prizes like this are obviously too subjective and open to favoritism. If we are talking strikers, then Svensson should have been nominated last year, along with Prinz and Ljungberg, but she was overlooked completely. I am not sure why Hamm was on that list, unless it was including her WUSA work. As for Marta being the queen of women's soccer, I think this is a vastly overrated issue. She is talented, for sure, and she is young, with great promise. But she has often failed under pressure, disappeared at crucial moments and in crucial games, and her lack of mental strength and experience often shows. I am sure this is something she can develop, but this nomination was a bit premature.
Of course you are right. Silke Rottenberg, just to name one player, should somewhere get a mention for her goalkeeping. I don't know what to really think about her queen status. She's definitely a huge star, despite her uneven playing. When you watch a game (at least when you're watching them live) with Marta on the field, you're going to notice her no matter what. Birgit Prinz doesn't quite have that quality, at least not the times I've seen her. Marta does have lots of strengths as a playmaker and her left foot is awesome, but maybe she is too small and light weight to fill the playmaker role, and perhaps a free striker role on the left suits her better. Well she has disappeared often historically, but I see a great improvement over just the last year. What she needs to do is to simplify her playing when meeting oppposition determined and able to eliminate her from the game. For Marta it's no longer a problem of getting cranky and just not caring when bad stuff happens to her. I've seen her break free from tight marking in the very last minutes of a game scoring the winning goal. I just think she's not strong enough and crafty enough when faced with the biggest and baddest of defenders. (another reason why defenders should get more credit, they do have those among them that are more impossible to pass than others)
Good posts exil and coffee. After following the U19 world championships it was obvious the FIFA technical committee were enamoured with Marta, almost to the point of worship. They absolutely love the Brazilian 'creative flair' and went on about it ad-nauseum. Marta is talented for sure, but there are other players who have a bigger impact on the field - granted they may not have Marta's footwork but fancy only goes so far in my books. The World vs. Germany game was quite revealing. Marta was not a big factor in the game. Prinz and Svensson were better. But Wambach, Boxx, Stegemann and Pichon were the real powerhouses. Of those players, Stegemann stands alone as the most underrated - she is almost impossible to catch out of position or beat 1-v-1 and she's a serious threat on offence whenever she decides to move the ball up field.
Sure, I believe the Ronglish term is "amusement arcade". Fancy footwork alone doesn't yield any results. A problem I've noticed is that her teammates (in both club and country) can't believe some of the passes they get and in pure surprise miss the sudden chance to score. I saw at least two occasions per game in the last club games of the season when a forward totally clear in front of the goal got a real zinger of a pass from Marta when she had her back turned to the goal as well as the would-be goalscorer with two defenders on her case. The result of the surprise pass was usually that the player with a sudden open goal scoring opportunity out of pure surprise missed the whole situation. Obviously, Marta's style and charisma, rather than just her actual impact on the game has had a lot to do with why she's among the final 3, and the blame for that is entirely on FIFA. I maintain, however, that out of the final 3, Marta is the one that should be awarded this prize.
Europe is a country?! Is it between Sweden and Norway? One of them Scandinavian countries I think. Jk Pillips. Just messing with you. Pillips, the UEFA women's cup is not a second rate championship. It's the most prestigious championship (other than the Euros, WWC, Olympics) that the women have. I have actually seen Mia dive a few times and push people off the ball. In my opinion though, that doesn't make someone a dirty player. Pillips, Dandal wasn’t taking the importance away of the Algarve and 4 Nations. They really are pre-season tournaments anyway, even for the USWNT. No one is saying they aren’t big tournaments for a national team. I understand that you don’t think it’s not a pre season tournament. In America, the focus is mostly on the national team. For the USWNT, the Algarve Cup is VERY important. The US doesn’t have the EC nor UEFA women’s cup. Aside from the WWC and Olympics, the next best thing is the Algarve Cup. You aren’t wrong Idgie. First I’d like to say, that my vote out of those three went to Marta, with Mia in a close second. I think Marta has had a better year out of the three. But we don’t vote, the coaches do . . . So . . . Moving on . . . Mia (and I’m not talking about the USWNT) was amazing this year. Abby wouldn’t have half the goals she has this year if it weren’t for Mia assisting her. Mia this year has 14 goals and 22 assists. Some of her best numbers. I don’t agree. I think Mia would definitely be a starter on UIK, but that’s my opinion I don’t agree that her best years were behind her. Before 2001 she was amazing. Around 2001 and 2002 she didn’t look as strong, but the past two years she’s played VERY WELL. I don’t think Marta at the moment is the queen of soccer. I believe she could become the next queen of soccer. She’s becoming quite a star, well, she already is a star . . . But not the queen of soccer just yet. I think Mia knows Marta is the future of the sport and will go VERY far in her career. A bunch of the Brazilian players have played in a foreign competitive league, the WUSA. Though it’s absent now and I do realize a younger generation of Brazilian players are now on the team and haven’t played in either the WUSA nor allsvenskan. Brazil has always had victories and has always been one of the top teams. I do think that type of play is typical of the Brazilian team, being aggressive, especially against the US. In past games, they always seem to be aggressive with the US. When I watch them play other teams, they don’t seem to be as physical. Though I do agree that the US is just as physical.
Are'nt assists an important part of the game? why this foolishness coming from you saying how Wambach would'nt have scored half of her goals without Mia's assists? If that was one of your favorite players like Marta you would have say that's a great goal they just scored. oh what a great goal Marta score as you have mention about the Olympic or U19. and all this superlative about Marta attempt to assists her club mates and turn arund and discredit Mia's assists and performents this year.
I think you misunderstood the point. It was a compliment to Mia. But I have a bit of a problem with Umeastriker's implication re: Wambach. Abby is a force in her own right, as she demonstrated in the FIFA All Star game (World vs. Germany). She doesn't need Mia's help to be a superstar. When Mia is gone, someone will be feeding the ball to Abby and Abby will do what she does - score lots of goals. Abby, not Mia has been the USWNT's key player for the past 2 years. Take away Abby and the USA's offense is in serious trouble. The way I see it, Mia would have put up a lot fewer assists this year if it were not for Abby's finishing skills.
Cafan thanks for pointing out my misunderstanding of the poster Umeastriker concerning Mia? She maybe be an intelligent person, but to me she lack real objective knowledge of the game or maybe she is one of those fans who got beef with certain players mostly westerners? being an or maybe an european. I see that there are people who can see what Wambach have beening doing for USWNT for the last two years? thanks for your post, at lease I can sleep well tonight. knowing there are fans who knows something about the game and are not blinded by nationality.
Thanks for clarifying for Pillips CAFAN. CAFAN, you are right. I wasn’t trying to put down Abby. I was using Mia’s assists to point out that she’s had a great year and that she assisted more than half of Abby’s goals. Again, I wasn’t trying to take away anything from Abby. J A poorly written example. J If Abby would have been on the list of the top three, which I don’t know why she isn’t, she would have been higher than Mia. Of course, this is would be my ranking and my opinion
but, is there anyone who has the ability to feed her like the way she does ? great fancy ball with highly accuracy ? the only one close to her is Wagner.
Not only did Prinz win, she won pretty convincingly (not that I am convinced, but those eligible to vote). Top ten here: Code: Surname Name Country First x5 Second x3 Third x1 Total Place Place Place Prinz Birgit Germany 46 230 39 117 29 29 376 Hamm Mia USA 40 200 20 60 26 26 286 Marta Brazil 39 195 23 69 17 17 281 Wambach Abby USA 16 80 11 33 13 13 126 Lilly Kristine USA 10 50 14 42 17 17 109 Ljungberg Hanna Sweden 8 40 19 57 12 12 109 Boxx Shannon USA 14 70 9 27 5 5 102 Svensson Victoria Sweden 6 30 13 39 20 20 89 Lingor Renate Germany 11 55 8 24 10 10 89 Cristiane Brazil 9 45 8 24 11 11 80 Full list at http://fifa.com/documents/fifa/events/results_by_player_women.pdf Those with anal attention to detail will of course enjoy the voting record, pdf at http://fifa.com/documents/fifa/events/women_votes_per_association.pdf
Ok, let me correct myself, you have to be pretty anal to be interested in the votes cast by Laotian head coach Kingmano Boutsavath (all incorrect btw), but it is pretty fun to check out how some of our more well-known coaches and captains voted. You can notice that Foudy, Prinz and Sweden's Malin Andersson all had Marta as their #1 and Wambach has a strong fan base north of the border.
1. Birgit Prinz 2. Mia Hamm 3. Marta 4. Aby Wambach 5. Kristine Lilly It would be interesting to se a result where only the countries which women’s team have actually played enough to get a word rating was allowed to vote (that is 121). I started but it was too much work so I stopped after the top 20. The result among those where quite different from the official one (where all FIFA member states got a vote, that is I think 223). Top 20: 1. Marta 2. Birgit Prinz 3. Shannon Boxx 4. Aby Wambach 5. Mia Hamm I think the result are seriously affected by the over 100 coaches/captains who votes but do not actually play international matches on a regular basis.
I do NOT mean that the list based on the top 20 nations would be better, it is actually worse. I just posted it to indicate that there seem to be a different voting pattern, and I believe a list with only the ranked nations (but all of them) voting would be better. I think Hamm and to somewhat lesser extent Prinz are getting the advantage of name reorganisation while Boxx and to lesser extent Wambach are the ones suffering from lack of it. When the coaches/captains of the less active national teams are voting. [Sorry, that I will not be able to answer anything for over a week. I will be leaving for X-mass holiday tomorrow morning and not be back for a week,]
If you, as Jan suggested, only count the votes cast by coaches and captains from nations that are on the FIFA ranking list, the result is pretty much the same. Only big difference is that Kristine Lilly drops a few places: Code: Birgit Prinz 294 Mia Hamm 223 Marta 209 Abby Wambach 107 Shannon Boxx 99 Victoria Svensson 78 Hanna Ljungberg 77 Kristine Lilly 72 Renate Lingor 62 Cristiane 59
Marta was not robbed at all. She still won an award. On the whole, Prinz may be more powerful, dangerous and formidable to encounter on the field than Marta. But some votes are interesting. And some votes are surprising, (Malin Andersson voting across the board for Brazilian players, including her teammate on MFF, Formiga.) Many votes seem like politics and favorites, as they often are. Sort of like what happens at the Oscars: people vote for a friend or someone whom they are in business with. OR they refuse to vote for someone that they bitterly dislike, even if that is an actor who really gave the best performance. What makes this FIFA vote even more likely to never be truly authentic and precise is that the votes are made public!
Maybe, but when Umeå met Frankfurt, Marta's start shone much brighter than Prinz'. Yes indeed! I also wondered about Marleen Wissinks votes for Marta and Mostrom over her team mate Prinz... You also have the name recognition factor when people vote for Lilly and Ljungberg although they have not perhaps been at their best level in 2004.
My response is a bit late but I had do dig a bit deeper about the Algarve Cup than I could find on the internet. Algarve Cup was started in 1994 as a preseason warm-up for the Nordic women’s national teams. It is a joint arrangement between the FA's in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Portugal where Portugal supplies the pitches and the Scandinavians takes turn organizing it (2005 it is Norway). So while the importance of the tournament have grown some it main purpose is still as season starter for the Nordic women’s national teams. Although there are a lot of (mostly) American sites more or less drastically exaggerating its importance. I even found one claiming it was the third most important women football tournament, and thus more important than the EURO championships a view I am quite sure all of the Algarve Cup’s arranging FA's would strongly disagree with.
A bit surpising. But then I am satisfied with the result. Thank you for taking the time to make the count I wanted.