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Fifa Ballon d’Or: Ronaldo set to top Lionel Messi as world’s best player

January 13, 2014
Ronaldo_WinMadrid, Jan 13: Cristiano Ronaldo is heavily favoured to end Lionel Messi’s four-year reign as the world’s best player at the Fifa Ballon d’Or gala on Monday.
Ronaldo’s prolific tally of 69 goals for Real Madrid and Portugal seems likely to earn his second Fifa award after finishing runner-up three times in Messi’s dominating era.
Franck Ribery is the third candidate, but the Bayern Munich and France winger needs to score a major upset to add the Fifa accolade to Uefa’s Best Player in Europe award, which he collected in August.
A Ronaldo victory is expected because of Fifa’s announcement after the World Cup playoffs in November to extend the voting deadline by two weeks.
That brought his inspiring performance and hat-trick for Portugal in Stockholm, completing a 4-2 aggregate win to eliminate Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Sweden, into the calculations.
“I did my job as I have been doing all season,” Ronaldo said following the match. “Every year I show what I’m about. I’ve scored 40 or 50 goals a season and that’s not enough for everyone.”
Messi, who got 45 goals for Barcelona and Argentina, was unable to further his case after already being ruled out of action for by a third injury in 2013.
Fifa also allowed the voting college — national team captains and coaches, plus one journalist, from each of world football’s 209 member countries — to change preferences and submit new ballot papers. Voters were invited to select their top three choices from a 23-man shortlist provided by Fifa and France Football magazine.

The adjustment prompted speculation Fifa was seeking to counter speculation in Spain and Portugal that the governing body and its president Sepp Blatter was biased toward Messi and Barcelona.
That long-held conspiracy theory was further fuelled in October when Blatter was filmed telling a student audience in Oxford, England, that he did indeed prefer Messi’s more modest personality and that Ronaldo was too concerned about his hairstyle.
Blatter’s subsequent mimicry of Ronaldo having a “commander on the field” stature only seemed to stoke the player’s anger and raise the level of his game even higher in the following weeks.
Last week, Ronaldo confirmed he would attend the ceremony in Zurich, ending speculation he would snub Fifa and Blatter in retaliation.
Ronaldo’s all-round excellence, variety and quality of goals have made him a worthy front-runner to add to his 2008 award, which was a reward for helping Manchester United win the Champions League.
His former boss at Old Trafford, Alex Ferguson, is also nominated for the coaching award after going into retirement with another Premier League title.
Jupp Heynckes, who also retired last May, is favoured to win after leading Bayern to a treble of Champions League, Bundesliga and German cup titles. Jurgen Klopp, whose Borussia Dortmund side was beaten by Bayern in the Champions League final, completes the shortlist.
The finalists for the women’s world player award are last year’s winner Abby Wambach of the United States, five-time winner Marta of Brazil and Germany goalkeeper Nadine Angerer, the current European player of the year.
Two more Germans who won European titles are competing to be named best coach in women’s football: Silvia Neid is the national team coach and Ralf Kellermann guided Wolfsburg to the Champions League title. Sweden coach Pia Sundhage, who won last year for her Olympic success with the United States, is the third candidate.
Ibrahimovic could get some compensation with the Puskas Award for most beautiful goal in the 12-month qualifying period, for his long-range bicycle kick for Sweden against England in a friendly in November 2012.
Neymar’s goal for Brazil against Japan in the Confederations Cup and Nemanja Matic’s strike for Benfica vs Porto in the Portuguese league complete the shortlist. Fans can vote online until Monday evening.
A World XI team has been selected by players in a poll organized by the FIFPro group of unions worldwide.
Fifa will also make a presidential award decided by Blatter and a prize rewarding fair play.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Jeddah, Jan 9: Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde criticised the new Supercopa format and said that "football has become a business and as a business it looks for income".

"The bottom line is football has become a business and as a business it looks for income. That's the reason we are all here," Goal.com quoted Valverde as saying ahead of Barca's semi-final against Atletico.

"It's a completely different format to what we're used to. It was always the first title and the opener of the season and to me, that seemed fine," he added.

The Supercopa was traditionally a two-legged affair played between the winners of La Liga and the Copa del Rey at the beginning of the season, but following last term's one-off meeting between Barca and Sevilla in Tangier, Morocco, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) went ahead with a full revamp.

Instead of just two teams being involved, the Supercopa has been expanded to also include the runners-up from La Liga and the Copa - meaning Barca and Valencia are joined by Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. It is also set to be hosted in Saudi Arabia for the next three editions.

"It's been changed and let's see, it will be judged once it has happened. It's interesting, with four good teams, but from a sporting point of view, I'm not sure," Valverde said.

"We must bear in mind that the football we are involved in is an industry, sources of income are sought and in the same way that there are special connotations in this country, there are also in Morocco, where we played last year," he added.

Barcelona will face Atletico Madrid in the semifinal of the Supercopa at King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah on January 10.

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Agencies
August 2,2020

New Delhi, Aug 2: BCCI president Sourav Ganguly on Sunday said the Women's IPL or the Challenger series, as it is better known, is "very much on", ending speculation about the parent body not having a plan for Harmanpreet Kaur and her team.

The men's IPL will be held between September 19 and November 8 or 10 (final date yet to be locked in) in the UAE due to the surge in Covid-19 cases in India. The women's IPL will also be fit in to the schedule, according to the BCCI chief.

"I can confirm to you that the women's IPL is very much on and we do have a plan in place for the national team also," Ganguly told PTI ahead of the IPL Governing Council meeting later on Sunday.

The BCCI president, who is awaiting a Supreme Court verdict on waiver of the cooling-off period to continue in the position, did not divulge details but another senior official privy to the development said that women's Challenger will be held during the last phase of IPL like last year.

"The women's Challenger series is likely to be held between November 1-10 and there could be a camp before that," the source said.

The former India captain also said that the centrally contracted women players will have a camp which has been delayed due to the prevailing situation in the country.

"We couldn't have exposed any of our cricketers -- be it male or female to health risk. It would have been dangerous," Ganguly said.

"The NCA also remained shut because of Covid-19. But we have a plan in place and we will have a camp for women, I can tell you that," he added.

The BCCI's cricket operations team is chalking up a schedule where Indian women are likely to have two full-fledged white-ball series against South Africa and the West Indies before playing the ODI World Cup in New Zealand. 

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News Network
May 12,2020

New Delhi, May 12: Virat Kohli's natural talent makes him a cricketing equivalent of Roger Federer while Steve Smith's mental fortitude matches that of Rafael Nadal, said South African swashbuckler AB de Villiers comparing the two contemporary greats.

In an instagram chat with former Zimbabwe seamer Pommie Mbangwa, de Villiers spoke about the two batsmen, who are easily the game's biggest crowd-pullers right now.

"It's a difficult one, but Virat is definitely the more natural ball-striker, there's no doubt about that," de Villiers said during his interaction on 'Sports Hurricane'.

"In tennis terms, I'd say he's more like a (Roger) Federer whereas Smith is like a (Rafael) Nadal. Smith is mentally very strong and figures out a way of scoring runs - he doesn't look natural, but he ends up writing records and doing amazing things at the crease.

"I think mentally, Smith is one of the best I have ever seen. Virat has also scored runs all over the world and won games under pressure," de Villiers,himself a modern day great, said.

De Villiers also felt that when it comes to chasing, Kohli is a shade ahead of Tendulkar.

"Sachin is a role model for both of us (him and Kohli). The way he stood out in his era, the things he achieved and with the grace he did all that is a great example for everyone," de Villiers said.

"And I think Virat will also say that he set the standards for us to follow.

"But personally, in a chase, I'd say Virat is the best I've seen in my life. Sachin was amazing in all formats and all situations, but Virat comes out on top while chasing."

The world knows Kohli as a prolific cricketer but for de Villiers, he is a friend, who has interests beyond cricket and is spiritual at one level.

"He's much deeper than just a cricket player...I think most people realise after a while that there's more to life than just cricket," de Villiers said.

"...Virat's always been a thinker, he experiments (with) a lot of things, he loves trying new things out - gym wise, what he puts in his mouth. He thinks a lot about life after life - what's to come, the different religions, we talk about everything."

De Villiers said that he also shares a great bond with Indian captain's actor wife Anushka Sharma, conversing on a lot of issues including family life.

"We go pretty deep and his missus as well, Anushka, we have very deep conversations, which is fantastic. We talk about children and family. We're waiting for that first little Kohli to come.

"It's a good friendship and we always find a way to talk about cricket as well, but 90 per cent of the time we talk about other stuff. It's refreshing and in the middle of a very intense IPL tournament," he shared.

IPL, for de Villiers, is not just a tournament but also about friendships that he cherishes.

"Obviously, when it comes to the IPL in India, it's been more than friendship," De Villiers said, when asked who his best friends in cricket are.

"Virat obviously - not only during the IPL, we chat throughout the year, which means it's different than just the IPL or cricketing friendship.

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