Ballon d'Or 2006

European Footballer of the Year
Fabio Cannavaro

The 51st Ballon d'Or ( French for “Golden Ball”) as European Footballer of the Year 2006 was awarded to Fabio Cannavaro on November 27, 2006 .

The center- back is only the third defender to have been honored since 1956 . He was on 42 of the 52 ballot papers (for the voting procedure see below, "Candidates") and on 20 of them in first place.

Result

1. Fabio Cannavaro (Juventus Turin / Real Madrid) with 173 points (42 mentions, including 20 first places)
2. Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus Turin) (124, 32/14)
3. Thierry Henry (Arsenal FC) (121, 36/6)
4. Ronaldinho (FC Barcelona) (73, 28/2)
5. Zinédine Zidane (Real Madrid / End of career) (71, 22/6)
6. Samuel Eto'o (FC Barcelona) (67, 26/2)
7. Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen) (29, 14/0)
8. Didier Drogba (Chelsea FC) (25, 11/0)
9. Andrea Pirlo (AC Milan) (17, 7/0)
10. Jens Lehmann (Arsenal FC) (13, 4/1)

Candidates

On October 17, 2006, France Football had nominated the following 50 players, from which a sports department from each of the 52 UEFA member countries had to choose five players and award them five, four, three, two and one point:

Michael Ballack (Bayern Munich, Chelsea FC) Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus Turin) Tim Cahill (Everton FC) Fabio Cannavaro (Juventus Turin, Real Madrid) Joe Cole (Chelsea FC) Grégory Coupet (Olympique Lyon) Cris (Olympique Lyon) Deco (FC Barcelona) Mahamadou Diarra (Olympique Lyon, Real Madrid) Didier Drogba (Chelsea FC) Michael Essien (Chelsea FC) Samuel Eto'o (FC Barcelona) Francesc Fàbregas (Arsenal FC) William Gallas (Chelsea FC, Arsenal FC) Gennaro Gattuso (AC Milan) Steven Gerrard (Liverpool FC) Ludovic Giuly (FC Barcelona) Fabio Grosso (US Palermo, Inter Milan) Thierry Henry (Arsenal FC) Juninho (Olympique Lyon) Kaká (AC Milan) Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen) Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich) Frank Lampard (Chelsea FC) Jens Lehmann (Arsenal FC)

Claude Makélélé (Chelsea FC) Florent Malouda (Olympique Lyon) Edison Méndez (LDU Quito, PSV Eindhoven) Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona) Andrea Pirlo (AC Milan) Lukas Podolski (1. FC Cologne, Bayern Munich) Carles Puyol (FC Barcelona) Franck Ribéry (Olympique Marseille) Juan Riquelme (Villarreal CF) Arjen Robben (Chelsea FC) Ronaldinho (FC Barcelona), last year's winner Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United) Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) Willy Sagnol (Bayern Munich) Andrij Shevchenko (AC Milan, FC Chelsea) Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich) John Terry (Chelsea FC) Lilian Thuram (Juventus Turin, FC Barcelona) Tiago (Olympique Lyon) Luca Toni (AC Florence) Fernando Torres (Atletico Madrid) Patrick Vieira (Juventus Turin, Inter Milan) David Villa (Valencia CF) Gianluca Zambrotta (Juventus Turin, FC Barcelona) Zinédine Zidane (Real Madrid, retired)

Vice world champion France (11), world champion Italy (7) and third place in the World Cup Germany (6) have the most candidates; England follows (5) ahead of Brazil and Spain (4 each) and Portugal, fourth in the World Cup, (3).

statistics

Votes from the editors from the German-speaking countries

• Germany (sports information service): 1. Lehmann, 2. Eto'o, 3. Klose, 4. Pirlo, 5. Ribéry
• Liechtenstein (Liechtensteiner Vaterland): 1st Cannavaro, 2nd Ribéry, 3rd Buffon, 4th Ronaldinho, 5th Zidane
• Luxembourg (La Voix du Luxembourg): 1. Buffon, 2. Henry, 3. Eto'o, 4. Ronaldinho, 5. Drogba
• Austria (ORF Sport): 1st Henry, 2nd Zidane, 3rd Pirlo, 4th Klose, 5th Ronaldinho
• Switzerland (TSR): 1st Buffon, 2nd Cannavaro, 3rd Henry, 4th Ronaldinho, 5th Drogba

Others

• The 20 countries that put Cannavaro in first place were: Bulgaria, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Wales and Belarus.
• Only 26 of the 50 proposed players received at least one point, from Germany apart from Klose and Lehmann also Podolski (3, from Turkey) and Lahm (1, from Greece).
• Only two of the 52 ballot papers contained all five names, which were also the top five, namely those of the Cypriot newspaper O Fileleftheros and the Icelandic Morgunblaðið .
• For the seventh time in a row among the top ten players in Europe, but never number 1: Thierry Henry achieved his second-best placement in 2006 after 2003 when he finished second behind Pavel Nedved.

source

• France Football No. 3164 of November 28, 2006, pp. 4-34.