10 Footballers Who Really Should Make New Year's Resolutions
It's time to call full-time on 2014, a year that gave us a brilliant World Cup, plenty of surprises at the top of the domestic game and Andy Tate.
It's also the time when most of us are making New Year's resolutions in order to inspire positive change in our lives. Promises to go to the gym more, eat less kebabs and spend fewer hours vegging on the couch watching football will probably be upheld all the way until the beginning of February.
In honour of the dawn of 2015, here are some resolution recommendations for some of Europe's best footballers, starting with the best of them all.
Nicklas Bendtner
1 of 10Nicklas Bendtner must make the same New Year's resolution he has made each year since becoming the self-perceived greatest player in the world: Keep being awesome... and try not to rub yourself on taxis!
The Danish megastar started 2014 in the best way possible, scoring for Arsenal against Cardiff on New Year's Day. Nicky B won't get the opportunity for such a positive early start in 2015, with Wolfsburg on a winter break—and manager Dieter Hecking sometimes dropping him from the squad entirely because he is too brilliant for the Bundesliga.
But this might be the year when he is finally crowned King of Denmark and all football is permanently stopped worldwide because he has been declared The Winner.
Mario Balotelli
2 of 10In terms of generating column inches and earning bans for inappropriate use of social media, it's been another great year for Mario Balotelli.
On the field, however, things haven't panned out quite so well.
Diminishing returns at Milan led to a £16 million transfer to Liverpool, where the Italian Stallion has thus far failed to contribute to the huge goal deficit left in Luis Suarez's wake.
So far on his Premier League return, Mario has registered 43 shots without a single goal (as per ESPNFC). Therefore, his New Year's resolution really ought to focus on raising his shots-to-goal ratio to a number above zero per cent.
Fernando Torres
3 of 10Speaking of formerly brilliant strikers who have had a rough year playing in Milan, Fernando Torres will be hoping for a brighter future when he makes his debut at Atletico Madrid—the club where he carved his fearsome reputation.
At some point in the past year, Nando must have come to the same conclusion once reached by Austin Powers: he has lost his mojo. Therefore, the Spaniard must focus his resolution on getting his mojo back.
To do this, he must follow the same route as Austin Powers and battle with someone who looks like a stereotypical movie villain. If only Atleti had someone fitting that description.
Cristiano Ronaldo
4 of 10Aside from a World Cup where he was let down by a poor team performance and some terrible hair, it's been a great year for Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Portuguese megastar started the year with a Ballon d'Or trophy, a feat he is quite likely to repeat at the ceremony in early January. He goes into the Christmas break with an unprecedented 25 goals and eight assists from 14 games, leading the charge in a team that looks like it might win every game for the rest of time.
It's clear that C-Ron has conquered football, so his 2015 resolution must focus on his new passion: Pants.
In 2014, Ronaldo has been gently laying the seeds to become the world's greatest underpants mogul—he subtly told the press that his supermodel girlfriend can't get enough of his form-fitting jollies, and he recently unveiled a statue of himself that had a very aspirational groin.
In 2015, it's time to start getting aggressive, by only playing games in his underwear and warning folks of the perils of wearing ugly pants.
Lionel Messi
5 of 102014 wasn't exactly cruel to Lionel Messi— he (embarrassingly) accepted the World Cup Golden Ball and he broke Telmo Zarra's all-time La Liga goalscoring record.
However, by his standards, it may have been frustrating. He lost the league and the World Cup at the last hurdle, didn't make the final four of the Champions League and has arguably been eclipsed by a Portuguese pants salesman.
But there is one field where the Argentinian is clearly leading: Bad leg tattoos. Messi owns one of the greatest left legs of all time and he has recently revealed a strange new design involving a sword, the number 10 and a 1970s football.
In 2015, Messi must resolve to cover both his limbs in random incongruous ink, much like Raul Meireles. As you can see above, his infant son Thiago is already on the case.
Steven Gerrard
6 of 10
It's been a rough year for Steven Gerrard. The Liverpool midfielder's powers on the field appear to be waning, he stepped down from the England set-up after a disappointing World Cup campaign and watched his first Premier League title slip away.
Gerrard's unfortunate slip that allowed Demba Ba to put the league title out of the Reds' reach was made worse by the fact that it was proceeded by a rousing Henry V-style speech in which the captain shouted "This does not f-----g slip now!"
Stevie G can't resolve to give up accidentally slipping up in 2015, but he certainly can aim to stop giving speeches that will come back to bite him.
Let someone else do the talking in 2015, Mr G. And leave the regrettable leadership techniques to your manager.
Luis Suarez
7 of 10
It's been an interesting year for Luis Suarez. The Uruguayan completed his best campaign ever with Liverpool, amassing 31 goals in 33 games and earning widespread acclaim.
He then went to the World Cup, Giorgio Chiellini "bumped into [him] with his shoulder" and then there was a four-month gap in the timeline.
Suarez's 2015 New Year's resolution should be simple: Carry on being a world-class footballer, but try to stop being a tremendously awful person.
In 2015, Luis should resist the urge to force a move to another club using the press he has routinely lambasted. He should really try hard not to bite another player, and if he does, perhaps he should try and actually accept some responsibility and show remorse in the aftermath. And he might want to stop cheating, or at the very least, stop openly admitting to cheating.
Of course, in the beautiful game, a player's negative traits are completely inconsequential as long as he keeps on performing on the field, so he has no reason to change his terrible ways. But it would be jolly nice if he tried.
Emile Heskey
8 of 10Emile William Ivanhoe Heskey scored in every other English league game he played in 2014, a goal-scoring ratio that any world-class striker would be proud of.
Admittedly, he only played two games, but he scored minutes into his debut for Bolton last week and almost scored again against Huddersfield at the weekend.
In 2015, the former England striker—who turns 37 in January—must resolve to become the new Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He should strive to be Bolton's super sub, defying his age and reputation to come on and save the day for the Trotters.
Just imagine if he finishes the season as Bolton's top scorer—the FIFA kids will be forced to eat their memes with a slice of humble pie.
Yaya Toure
9 of 10
It's a pretty simple resolution for Yaya Toure this year: stop talking about cake.
You're a professional footballer, Yaya. You shouldn't be eating cake anyway. Stick with the brown rice and protein powder.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
10 of 10New Year's resolutions offer us a chance to make positive change; to improve our lives and make better choices.
The Mighty Zlatan Ibrahimovic is already number one at everything he does and has never made an incorrect decision in his life, so perhaps he could make his resolutions benefit those around him instead.
Perhaps the powerful Swede could share the Paris Saint-Germain car park with his team-mates in 2015? Maybe he could let the moose population of Sweden control its own numbers instead of intervening? Or perhaps he could truly enrich all of our lives by penning a sequel to his Pep Guardiola diatribe I Am Zlatan?
We might not get hoverboards like Back to The Future II promised, but an update to Zlatan's literary tome would bring a similar level of satisfaction and improvement to the lives of the global community.
