Am I alone in thinking that some of the choices that were made for "European Player of the Year" award look a bit debatable in retrospect? For example, Kevin Keegan winnin in '78 but not in '77 (crassest example). Or Ronaldo in 2002. I didn`t like when UEFA allowed South Americans to be included in these polls, but that Ronaldo win in 2002 was just illogical. He won because of what he did at the World Cup for Brazil in Japan/Korea, actually not for what he did in the Italian League or the Champions League - thus him winning the European award in 2002 was just plain silly. Or 1974: regardless of how great Cruijff played, Beckenbauer was equal to him, plus he was the skipper and most important player of the teams that won the World Cup, the European Champions Cup and the German Championship all in the same year. No other European player before or after has ever won the World Cup and the EC I in the same year plus the national championship - and since he also played outstandingly, Beckenbauer should have won in '74 (esp. since Cruijff already won in '71 and '73). Another case is 1986: I would have preferred to see Gary Lineker win instead of Igor Belanov. Lineker was the top scorer in the First English Division plus the World Cup`s top goal scorer. Anyway, I`ve played with the idea of which player 'should' have won an award instead of a less-worthy one, and here are my alterations: 1956 Matthews 1957 di Stéfano 1958 Fontaine (instead of Kopa) 1959 di Stéfano 1960 Suarez 1961 Seeler (instead of Sivori) 1962 Masopust 1963 Yashin 1964 Law 1965 Eusebio 1966 R.Charlton 1967 Müller (instead of Albert) 1968 Best 1969 Rivera 1970 Müller 1971 Cruijff 1972 Netzer (instead of Beckenbauer) 1973 Cruijff 1974 Beckenbauer (instead of Cruijff) 1975 Blokhin 1976 Beckenbauer 1977 Keegan (instead of Simonsen) 1978 Rensenbrink (instead of Keegan) 1979 Keegan 1980 Rummenigge 1981 Rummenigge 1982 Rossi 1983 Platini 1984 Platini 1985 Platini 1986 Lineker (instead of Belanov) 1987 Gullit 1988 van Basten 1989 van Basten 1990 Matthäus 1991 Papin 1992 van Basten 1993 R.Baggio 1994 Stoitchkov 1995 Rijkaard (instead of Weah) 1996 Sammer 1997 Bergkamp (instead of Ronaldo) 1998 Zidane 1999 Shevchenko (instead of Rivaldo) 2000 Figo 2001 Owen 2002 Kahn (instead of Ronaldo) 2003 Nedved 2004 ?
I am terribly impressed that your years don't run together in one jumbly football mess. I can barely remember the year John Harkes came to the Owls or the horrible year that Manchester Utd. won the treble. How do you do it?
crujff lost the worldcup final 1974 against beckenbauer and his team..and this count..beckenbauer was the best player in this final game and cruiffs has played his worst game of the tournament.... and the reasons was???? beckenbauer won olso the eurochampionscup and the german championship and was the leader in this cup wins...... pitt
I would definitely have keep Kopa ahead of Fontaine for 58, after all it was Kopa that made most of his goals. As Brian Glanville said of the pairing "it is like picking the monkey ahead of the organ grinder". If you are excluding South Americans then I would say 1995 Klinsmann 1997 Zidane 1998 Campbell 1999 Ginola 2000 Zidane 2002 Ballack In 1961 the winner should have been Danny Blanchflower of Spurs, the inspirational captain of the best side in the world. Clearly there is a substantial bias here as I have picked 4 Spurs players, but each one is richly deserved.
1995 Was Rijkaard the key player in Ajax victory in the CL? I thought he was bascially the senior player on the team. He was not the impact player. Jari Litaman should be considered as well. 1997 What did Bergkamp do? I am not attacking your selection. I just forgot that year.
It's a player of the YEAR award, not a player of the match award. The reason why Cruyff didn't played well in the final --> Bild; what a ********'s! Cruyff played a better WC 74 than BB and he won the Spanish title with Barca (the first in 14 years) , scoring 24 goals, IMO is Cruyff THE Euro player of the Year in 1974!
i dont know what you talk about...the spanish title for cruijff is for me not bigger than beckenbauers german title...both are euqal for me...beckenbauer won 1974 the two most important titles ,for clubs ,the eurochampionscup title and for nationalteams the wordcup title..crujff NOT...i knows that crujff has played a great worldcup , but this has endet in the final against his big rival beckenbauer,the direct duell between both players lost cruijff and crujff lost olso his most important game in his career, diffrent to beckenbauer.....plain and simple...big reasons for crujffs european player of the year awards 1971 and 1973 was his eurochampionscup wins same year with ajax..you suggest me that this wins are big archivments or ??,i agree , but you play down beckenbauers eurochampionscup win 1974...beckebauer has toped this olso with a additional worldcup win same year 1974... i knows that crujff got few votes more than beckenbauer..this are facts..but my opinon is that beckenbauer did more in this year and i have backed up some points why...i think you are a little bit to biased.... pitt
Maybe because this award was for European players up until 1995 when they changed the rule to include all players playing in Europe.
2000 should have been Raul. He not only led the Champions' League in scoring but also was a key factor in Real Madrid winning the whole thing. It's a crime, really, that Raul has not been European Player of the Year at least once. And Campbell in 98? Ahead of, say, Davor Suker?
Gregoriak, this is an interesting way of looking at the award. However, by mixing national origin with worthiness it gets a bit muddled. Can you clarify if Rijkaard deserved it over Weah because he had a better year, or just because Weah is African (therefore should not have been in the running)? If Weah had gotten EU status, would he keep the award? I was under the impression (could be mistaken) that Rivaldo had gotten Spanish citizenship in his time at Barca? If so, would you still have Schevy over him in 1999? Distefano stays as '57 winner though to many people's mind he will always be Argentine first and foremost? Maybe you could anotate the changes you propose on your list with either Performance Based (PB) or Eligibility Based (EB).
Weah, I believe, has a French passport. I'm not sure about Rivaldo, but di Stefano -did- play for Spain, for whatever it's worth.
I'm not normally one to support Zidane, but 2000 was his year, the one year in which he looked truly supreme. Perhaps we give championships too much significance, but in Euro 2000 Zidane was incredible. Raul missed the penalty against France in the quarter final which cost Spain dear. As for 98 I realise that Suker scored 6 goals for Croatia and won the CL with Real Madrid, but Campbell was incredible that year and was certainly for me the best defender of the WC. Playing for Spurs meant that not enough people saw his achievements.
To me, the decisive criteria is what national team a player is engaged in. So in case of Weah, he played for an African country, I think it was Liberia, EU status wouldn`t have changed that (same criteria for Rivaldo). Apart from that, I think Rijkaard kinda deserved that award in 95 - the old master leading a group of youngsters to European glory. Not sure whether Ajax would have won the CL without Rijkaard. The exclusion of South Americans in my alternate awards list only starts from 1995 onwards (when they became eligible). I didn`t consider di Stéfano, Sivori, Eusebio under that post-1995 criteria, as they all played for European national teams. In the case of Sivori, I just thought Seeler deserved it more. All pre-1995 are PB. EB is 1995, 97, 99 and 02 (good idea, btw).
OK, I didn`t remember 1997 that well, thus I had a look at the Top 5 players back then, and it turnt out Mijatovic was #2, Zidane #3 and Bergkamp #4. So obviously Bergkamp must have had quite a good year, the reason why I chose him and not Zidane or Mijatovic were 1) Zidane won 1 year later, 2) Bergkamp is a very fine player that should have deserved to win this award, definitely more than Mijatovic. That`s why I chose Bergkamp. Addressing the 1974 Cruijff vs. Beckenbauer issue: without Franz, a troubled, out-of-form Germany team would not have won that Tournament. In 1974, Franz was at his peak, he played every bit as well as Cruijff did in 74, but Franz`s "eternal" disadvantage was that he was "just" a defender - while Cruijff was an offensive player. Offensive players are always favored when it comes to popularity among fans and journalists. It is quite telling that only two defenders have ever won the European Player of the Year Award (Franz twice in 72 and 76, and Sammer in 96). All other winners were all offensive players (midfield or strikers, with the exception of Yashin in 63). There cannot be an argument about whether Cruijff or Beckenbauer was better - they both were equal. That`s why I consider it an injustice that Johan won 3 awards, and Franz only 2, despite achieving much less than Franz (only 1 World Cup participation, contrary to Franz`s three; Franz won the Euro 72, Holland wasn`t even there; both won the CL three times in a row, Franz led his team to World Cup victory, Johan failed in the very same match). Another thing is immensely 'odd' - almost every year when a World Cup was held, the player that excelled there won the Award (Kopa 58, Masopust 62, Charlton 66, Müller 70, Rossi 82, Belanov 86, Matthäus 90, Stoitchkov 94, Zidane 98, Ronaldo 02). The sole exception was 1978 and, to a lesser degree, 1974 (as Cruijff of course also excelled at the World Cup). In almost all other years, the decisive factor for the award was the European Champions Cup. I find it incredibly odd that at the only time an great player won both the World Cup and the European Clubs Cup in the same year, he didn`t win the European Award!!! That was the case with Franz in 74. Cruijff was not that good that he overshadowed Franz`s achievements in the 73/74 season. Some people say that Cruijff won the Spanish Championship for Barca in a most impressive style in 74 - right, but Franz led Bayern to the third successive Bundesliga title in a row in 74 - and during the 70s, the Bundesliga was definitely the stronger league. My two cents!
All I know is that I definately agree that Sheva should have won the award in 1999. He had one of those years that not many people have had in the history of football. First half of the year he leads Dynamo to yet another league title, puts them on his back and takes them to the CL semis(where he was top scorer in the competition), then he is transferred to Milan where he leads Serie A in goals in his first season. But he didn't have the "Name" recognition yet so he didn't win.
Despite all these disagreements I'm really fine with all the winners, I don't consider them extreme upsets. This kind of thing happens all the time, like Beckham winnning male soccer player of the year...tsk tsk tsk
Nice post, but... Franz Beckenbauer himself said several times that Johan Cruijff was a better player than he was.
True - but that`s basically because Beckenbauer is a nice guy when it comes to handing out compliments. Unfortunately Cruijff never returned the compliment, which may have to do with Cruijff`s "no b.u.l.l.-s.h.i.t. nicety-nice" attitude. Franz is completely different, he says nice things about everybody if he is asked. To illustrate this, when the incompetent and alreay retired Erich Ribbeck was appointed Coach of Germany NT in 1998 (causing great critisism from the media) he said "he has won everything there is to win, he is a great coach", etc. The only thing Ribbeck had won in a 30-year coaching career was the UEFA Cup with Leverkusen in 1988. Just wanted to point out that Beckenbauer`s comments are to be taken with a pinch of salt mostly - everyone in Germany knows that.