FIFA Ballon d'Or 2011

World Player of the Year 2011
Lionel Messi

The 56th Ballon d'Or ( French for Golden Ball ) was awarded for the second time in 2011 by France Football magazine and the world football association FIFA under the name FIFA Ballon d'Or . This is the fifth time that the world's best footballer of the year has been honored. After the three best players had already been published in December 2011 - without their respective placement on the “podium” - the final result was announced on January 8, 2012 at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich . Lionel Messi was the winner of the Ballon d'Or 2011 - for the third time in a row - ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo and Xavi .

Voting mode

The prize was awarded by a jury made up of 147 national coaches , 143 national team captains and 154 specialist journalists. Each of them gave five, three or one point to three players from a list jointly set by the France Football editorial team and FIFA. The performance of the players should be recognized throughout the respective calendar year. Since the three groups of voters have different numbers of voters, but the votes of these three "electoral colleges" should each account for exactly one third of the total result, the absolute scores were then converted into percentages and published in this way.

Result

placement	Surname	nationality	society	Share of votes
1.	Lionel Messi	Argentina	FC Barcelona	47.88%
2.	Cristiano Ronaldo	Portugal	real Madrid	21.60%
3.	Xavi	Spain	FC Barcelona	9.23%
4th	Andrés Iniesta	Spain	FC Barcelona	6.01%
5.	Wayne Rooney	England	Manchester United	2.31%
6th	Luis Suarez	Uruguay	Liverpool FC	1.48%
7th	Diego Forlan	Uruguay	Atlético Madrid / Inter Milan	1.43%
8th.	Samuel Eto'o	Cameroon	Inter Milan / Anzhi Makhachkala	1.34%
9.	Iker Casillas	Spain	real Madrid	1.29%
10.	Neymar	Brazil	FC Santos	1.12%

Of the nominated German players, Mesut Özil was best placed 11th, Thomas Müller was 13th and Bastian Schweinsteiger was 15th.

statistics

Overall, the result at the top this year was more clear than ever before. This also applies to the votes of the three groups of jurors involved, in which Messi, Ronaldo, Xavi and Iniesta took the first four places in this order. With regard to the ranking of the remaining 19 candidates, there were notable differences:

Among the journalists, Suarez followed in ranks 5 to 8, ahead of Rooney, Neymar and Forlan; for the national coaches Rooney was ahead of Forlan, Eto'o and Casillas (here in ninth place: Özil), and for the national team captains the ranking was Eto'o, Casillas, Rooney and Sneijder.

Votes from the German-speaking countries in detail

• Germany
  • Karlheinz Wild (KICKER Sportmagazin): 1st Messi, 2nd Xabi Alonso, 3rd Özil
  • Joachim Löw : 1st Xavi, 2nd Messi, 3rd Iniesta
  • Philipp Lahm : 1st Messi, 2nd Xavi, 3rd Cristiano Ronaldo
• Liechtenstein
  • Ernst Hasler (Liechtenstein Fatherland): 1st Messi, 2nd Xavi, 3rd Özil
  • Hans-Peter Zaugg : 1st Messi, 2nd Cristiano Ronaldo, 3rd Xavi
  • Mario Frick : 1st Messi, 2nd Xavi, 3rd Cristiano Ronaldo
• Luxembourg
  • Didier Hiegel and Christophe Nadin (La Voix du Luxembourg): 1st Messi, 2nd Cristiano Ronaldo, 3rd Rooney
  • Luc Holtz : 1st Messi, 2nd Xavi, 3rd Cristiano Ronaldo
  • René Peters : 1st Messi, 2nd Xavi, 3rd Iniesta
• Austria
  • Walter Kowatsch-Schwarz (freelance journalist): 1st Messi, 2nd Cristiano Ronaldo, 3rd Xavi
  • Marcel Koller : 1st Iniesta, 2nd Messi, 3rd Schweinsteiger
  • Marc Janko : 1st Iniesta, 2nd Cristiano Ronaldo, 3rd Xavi
• Switzerland
  • Pierre-Alain Dupuis (Télévision Suisse Romande): 1st Messi, 2nd Xavi, 3rd Cristiano Ronaldo
  • Ottmar Hitzfeld : 1st Messi, 2nd Cristiano Ronaldo, 3rd Schweinsteiger
  • Gökhan Inler : 1st Messi, 2nd Cristiano Ronaldo, 3rd Xavi

Nominees

At the end of October, the 23-player group of candidates was announced:

Éric Abidal ( FC Barcelona )  Sergio Agüero ( Manchester City )  Xabi Alonso ( Real Madrid )  Dani Alves (FC Barcelona)  Karim Benzema (Real Madrid)  Iker Casillas (Real Madrid)  Samuel Eto'o ( Inter Milan , Anzhi Makhachkala )  Cesc Fàbregas ( Arsenal FC, Barcelona FC)  Diego Forlán ( Atlético Madrid , Inter Milan)  Andrés Iniesta (FC Barcelona)  Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona, ​​last year's winner)  Thomas Müller ( FC Bayern Munich )

Nani ( Manchester United )  Neymar ( FC Santos )  Mesut Özil (Real Madrid)  Gerard Piqué (FC Barcelona)  Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)  Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)  Bastian Schweinsteiger (FC Bayern Munich)  Wesley Sneijder (Inter Milan)  Luis Suárez ( Liverpool FC )  David Villa (FC Barcelona)  Xavi (FC Barcelona)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sawa, Messi and tons of other stars. In: fifa.com. FIFA , accessed November 8, 2014 . 
2. ↑ All information on votes and orders 2011 from France Football from January 10, 2012, Supplement "Messi ³ "
3. ^ France Football of October 26, 2010, pp. 8-19
4. ↑ France Football, January 25, 2011, p. 23