Who Is Hot and Who Is Not in World Football After Weekend of Dec. 19-21
The final week of fixtures in 2014 has come and gone in many of Europe's top leagues, with the likes of Italy, France and Spain seeing no more top-flight football until 2015.
This weekend, though, they still provided us with plenty of highs and lows—as did the Premier League, which will surge on powerfully through the festive period into the new year.
Here are our selections of players from both ends of the scale this weekend, our "Hot or Not" choices featuring players who affected games in a big way, either positively or negatively.
Hot: Antoine Griezmann
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We start off in Spain, where Sunday night's big game saw Athletic Bilbao host Atletico Madrid at the new San Mames, with the away side overcoming a poor first half to record a thumping 4-1 victory.
The catalyst for their second-half improvement was the vibrant display of Antoine Griezmann—playing as a centre-forward for most of the game for Atleti—who showed great composure and awareness to net himself a hat-trick.
Athletic couldn't cope with his pace and movement, and he netted his first Atleti treble to take his side to within four points of Real Madrid at the winter break.
Not: Sergio Busquets
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Barcelona won 5-0 on Saturday, easily beating Cordoba in the end, but the scoreline masks what was a fairly lethargic and disappointing performance from the Catalan side for 80 minutes or so.
Central in the lineup and central to that poor form is holding midfielder Sergio Busquets, who, after a great start to the campaign, has been on a puzzling decline over the past couple of months.
A lack of urgency and consideration about his play was apparent again at the weekend, with more than a few poor balls going astray. He also missed challenges in the centre and allowed Barca's very mediocre opposition time and room to break forward past him. Barcelona need him back to his best after the winter break.
Hot: David Silva
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To the Premier League in England now, where the hot name from the weekend has to be David Silva, who was in terrific form for Manchester City as they overcame Crystal Palace 3-0.
City didn't have a recognised striker on the pitch, so the attacking midfielders needed to step up, with Spaniard Silva netting two and getting himself into all kinds of good positions in the penalty area throughout the game—he could really have had three or four by full time.
Still, Silva's movement and invention on the ball was the game-changer, moving City level—only momentarily—with Chelsea at the top of the table.
Not: Fabio Borini
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Liverpool outplayed Arsenal in a big way on Sunday, yet they still almost fell to defeat before a late equaliser left the final score at 2-2.
They would have been hopeful of coming from behind to win the game late on, such was their dominance, but after substitute Fabio Borini came on with 15 minutes to go for his first Premier League appearance in a month, the Reds were quickly down to 10 men.
Borini came on fired up, powered a header on target, received a yellow card for throwing the ball away in disgust when a decision went against him and then received a second yellow and subsequent red for a high-footed challenge. The Italian wanted to make an impact, but this wasn't the kind he had in mind. Liverpool's chances of taking something from the game almost went with him.
Hot: Sergio Ramos
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Real Madrid weren't in domestic action this weekend, as they were too busy being crowned the best club in the world.
Centre-back Sergio Ramos has been in tremendous form in La Liga this season, and he carried that into the Club World Cup, where he impressed in both the semi-final and, on Saturday, the final against San Lorenzo.
Ramos was strong defensively, scored the opening goal at the other end of the field and ended up winning the Golden Ball award for being the best player at the tournament, despite later admitting that he had played with a thigh muscle tear, per ESPN FC's Dermot Corrigan.
"Being honest I risked a lot to play," Ramos said. "There was a risk of worsening the injury. I had a little tear, but fortunately it has not got any worse. It was worth it."
Not: Per Mertesacker
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Back to the Liverpool-Arsenal game at Anfield, where the Gunners' 6'6" centre-back Per Mertesacker played a key role in the Reds' late equaliser by helpfully cowering out of the way as Martin Skrtel powered home a late header.
It's not the first time Arsenal's defence has been under the spotlight lately. Nor, for that matter, Mertesacker himself, following some extremely shoddy defensive work by the German against Stoke City.
Barney Ronay of The Guardian wrote:
"Twice in two weeks the German has been vilified by the combined punditry might of Jamie Carragher and Martin Keown.
Just as twice Mertesacker has turned his back on the ball in the lead-up to an opposition goal, most damagingly as Martin Skrtel leapt to power in Liverpool’s stirring injury‑time equaliser at Anfield.
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The lack of aggression and leadership shown at the back for the opening goal of the game was repeated and even surpassed by Mertesacker right at the death, which lost his team a couple of points.
Hot: Manuel Neuer
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Yes, Manuel Neuer conceded a goal at the weekend—a drilled shot by Elkin Soto that flew through the goalkeeper's legs.
However, we're putting him in our Hot list for one simple reason: He's been the best. Neuer once again showed his capacity for making impressive saves over the remainder of the game, and with Bayern eventually winning the game 2-1, he ends 2014 as the 'keeper who's conceded the least amount of goals during the first stage of the season in any of Europe's major leagues.
Neuer isn't going to win the Ballon d'Or, but with just four league goals conceded in half a season (17 matches), he deserves recognition here.
Not: Roman Burki
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We finish up with another goalkeeper from the Bundesliga—one who's at the other end of the scale to Neuer.
Roman Burki is Freiburg's stopper, and his team are sitting at the bottom of the German top flight at the midway point, though it didn't have to be this way. Freiburg were 2-0 up against Hannover with less than eight minutes to play at the weekend, but their opponents came back to score twice and force a 2-2 draw. A win would have sent Freiburg up to 14th place and left Borussia Dortmund bottom instead.
Burki miskicked a late clearance straight to Hannover's Joselu, who scored with no mistake and left Burki and his side at the foot of the Bundesliga.
