Ballon D'Or 2014: Gala Date, Time, Live Stream and Predictions for Nominees
The Ballon d’Or award ceremony is a time for celebration—an occasion whereby the best footballer on the planet is honoured in front of the game’s elite and showered in much-deserved praise.
The only problem is, you can’t please every fan, as year on year the champion selected from three nominees is a controversial choice somewhere.
This year, the usual suspects, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, will be battling it out for the prize with the German World Cup-winning goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer. Read on for all the key details of Monday’s ceremony and a prediction for who will take 2014’s crown:
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Date: Monday, 12 January 2015
Time: 7 p.m. (GMT)
TV: Sky Sports 5 (U.K. only)
Two-Horse Race at Ballon d’Or
When it comes to the crowning of football’s greatest, there are only two names that are ever considered—Ronaldo and Messi.
Since 2008, the pair have dominated the individual award of all awards, with the Barcelona forward winning four titles and Real Madrid’s main man taking two—including last year’s.
Ronaldo has strong case for recording back-to-back titles for the first time in his remarkable career, though, and comes into Monday’s ceremony as the red-hot favourite to do just that.
2014 was an incredible year for Ronaldo, as he took his goalscoring brilliance to another level both domestically and in Europe and reaped the rewards with four doses of silverware.
The biggest of them all was the Champions League, Real’s 10th, and the Portuguese star was the standout performer throughout the entire campaign.
According to UEFA, Ronaldo netted 17 goals in the 2013-14 Champions League—nine goals more than Messi.
That set a new record for goals scored in a single season, per Squawka Football, but the records didn’t stop there for the mercurial striker.
Just last month, Ronaldo chalked up a record-breaking 23rd La Liga hat-trick in a 3-0 victory over Celta Vigo, and in doing so brought about his 200th goal in the Spanish top flight from the fewest number of games, 178—per Nicholas Rigg of The Independent.
That led Real manager Carlo Ancelotti to sing the 29-year-old’s praises, labelling him a star at the top of his game:
“It is a real advantage to have Cristiano playing for us. He is playing really well and he is peak physical condition, he is extraordinarily motivated at the moment."
Saying it’s an “advantage” having Ronaldo on your team is the understatement of the century, as he’s quite simply a phenomenon.
However, the same can be said for Messi, who didn’t have the worst 2014, either.
The Barcelona front man seems to have broken every record going in football, but last year saw him write himself into La Liga folklore—not that he wasn’t there already.
The Argentinian broke Telmo Zarra’s all-time goalscoring tally of 251 goals with a hat-trick against Sevilla, and the scary thing is, he’s still counting—per OptaJose:
Messi’s legs probably have around seven years left at the top level, so who knows how high he could set the bar?
The same goes for the Champions League, where the 27-year-old broke Real Madrid legend Raul’s record of 71 goals, 51 games faster than the Spaniard managed—via Footy:
Let’s take a look away from the domestic game now and go internationally to World Cup 2014—another one of Messi’s ever-growing list of stomping grounds.
Messi produced the goods when it mattered in Brazil, scoring a number of important goals and firing Argentina all the way to the final.
For that, he received the player of the tournament award, and although its integrity was contested, few could argue with his brilliance every time he donned the blue and white shirt.
That leads us on nicely to this year’s underdog, Neuer, who has seemingly been written off from the award. However, the German is more than just a third wheel.
While we can say how good Ronaldo and Messi were across 2014, they missed out on the biggest prize of them all—the World Cup.
Neuer was outstanding for Germany throughout the competition, but that was hardly any surprise given his brilliance with Bayern Munich.
The 28-year-old has revolutionised what a goalkeeper is, trademarking the “sweeper keeper” tag and occasionally getting a little too adventurous.
Seeing your goalkeeper spraying passes around 30 yards from his goal is enough to make any manager worry, but Neuer is just so good at it.
He’s the best goalkeeper in the world by some distance; you can throw David de Gea and Thibaut Courtois’ names in the hat as much as you like, but they don’t come close.
At times, the German No. 1 is unbeatable.
Seeing Neuer lift the crown on Monday would give the Ballon d’Or the shake-up that it needs, but it’s safe to say it would be an injustice if Ronaldo didn’t take his third title.
Neuer is fantastic, Messi is a modern-day genius, but Ronaldo is 2014’s best. And with the way that he’s started this year, labelling him the best of 2015 in 12 months’ time isn’t the most farfetched idea.
