Messi, Mourinho, Marta and Neid crowned as the best for 2010

Argentina’s Lionel Messi collected the FIFA Ballon d’Or, his second consecutive title. Brazil’s Marta continued her winning streak as she clamined her fifth FIFA Women’s Player of the year award at the FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala held at the Zurich Kongresshaus yesterday evening.

11 January 2011, 12:00am
by Kevin Grech

2 min read

Real Madrid coach was recognised for his treble winning season with Inter when he won the Men’s FIFA World Coach of the Year award.
Germany’s women national team coach Silvia Neid won the FIFA World Coach of the Year for women’s football.
Messi had an outstanding 2010, winning the Spanish league with his club Barcelona. Messi obtained 22.65% of the votes, ahead of his club team-mates Andrés Iniesta (17.36%) and Xavi (16.48%).

Marta thrilled fans in the Women’s Professional Soccer League in the USA, where she won the Golden Boot and was elected best player of the season with FC Gold Pride. She collected 38.20% of the votes, ahead of Germany’s Birgit Prinz and Fatmire Bajramaj, who received 15.18% and 9.96%, respectively.

Mourinho, who led Inter Milan to the UEFA Champions League, the Italian Serie A and the Italian cup before moving to Real Madrid in the summer of 2010, won with 35.92% of the votes, ahead of Spanish national coach Vicente del Bosque, who received 33.08%, and Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola (8.45%).

Meanwhile, Silvia Neid, coach of current world champions Germany, led the women’s coach category with 24.06% of the votes, ahead of Germany’s U-20 women’s team coach Maren Meinert (18.26%) and the Swedish coach of the USA women’s national team Pia Sundhage (11.68%).

The FIFA/FIFPro World XI to honour the best eleven players of the year 2010, as chosen by over 50,000 professional players from all over the world, went to a “dream team” consisting of Iker Casillas (Spain) in goal; Maicon (Brazil), Lúcio (Brazil), Gerard Piqué (Spain) and Carles Puyol (Spain) in defence; Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Xavi (Spain) and Andrés Iniesta (Spain) in midfield; and Lionel Messi (Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) and David Villa (Spain) up front.

The FIFA Puskas Award for the “most beautiful goal” of the year went to Turkey’s Hamit Altintop for his fantastic goal in the UEFA EURO 2012 qualifying match between Kazakhstan and Turkey played in Astana on 3 September 2010.

Kevin Grech is MaltaToday's sports editor. He has been the designer of MaltaToday's print ...