It’s that time of year where the shortlists for the FIFA/FIFPro World XI are being announced with the goalkeeper, defender and midfield positions already decided upon, while the list of forwards was set to be announced at a press conference in Sao Paulo last (Friday) night. So, what is it and how does it work? Well, 50,000 professional footballers belonging to the players’ unions across the world that form FIFPro received voting forms to nominate their peers in a secret ballot for inclusion in their World XI – choosing the best goalkeeper, four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards of 2012.
The final FIFA/FIFPro World XI then due to be announced at the FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala at the Zurich Kongresshaus on 7 January 2013. The televised gala also seeing the winner of the FIFA Ballon d’Or for the best player of 2012 and the winner of the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2012 award revealed. Meanwhile, for the third time, the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football award and the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football award will be presented, alongside the FIFA Puskás Award for the best goal of the year, the FIFA Presidential Award and the FIFA Fair Play Award.
Who’s on the shortlists then is of course the obvious question, well starting with the goalkeepers we have Gianluigi Buffon from Juventus, Iker Casillas from Real Madrid, Chelsea’s Petr Cech, Joe Hart of Manchester City and Manuel Neuer from Bayern Munich. Hart seems a fair shout, although a few mistakes have crept into his game of late, while you have to think that Cech’s inclusion is in a large part down to Chelsea’s success in the Champions League. Neuer takes it for me though, haven’t seen him play a vast amount of games to be fair but in the ones I have seen he has been very impressive for both Bayern and the German national team.
Onto defenders, and we have a bumper 20 on the list, five from Barcelona in Jordi Alba, Dani Alves, Javier Mascherano, Gerard Pique and Carlos Puyol, while staying in Spain three players feature from Real Madrid in Marcelo, Pepe and Sergio Ramos. The rest of the non-English Premier League players being Giorgio Chiellini from Juventus, Mats Hummels from Borussia Dortmund, Phillip Lahm from Bayern Munich and then finally Thiago Silva from Paris St-Germain.
From England then come at Chelsea four players in Ashley Cole, David Luiz (no, honestly), Branislav Ivanovic and John Terry, while at Manchester United we have Patrice Evra and Rio Ferdinand (no, honestly). The remaining two players to feature from our Premier League being Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany, along with Tottenham’s Gareth Bale (isn’t he a winger these days?). Kompany certainly deserves to be in there for me, but I would have to have both Ferdinand and David Luiz as down as, shall we say, surprise inclusions.
In the midfield ranks we have 15 candidates for the FIFA/FIFPro World XI with this section looking to be very hotly contested. From Barcelona we have Sergio Busquets, Cesc Fabregas, Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez, while Real Madrid come close behind on three players in Xabi Alonso, Luka Modric and Mesut Ozil. Frank Ribery and Bastian Schweinsteiger then represent Bayern Munich, while the inclusion of Andrea Pirlo from Juventus then leaves us with five players from the English Premier League. Those being Eden Hazard and Frank Lampard from Chelsea, David Silva and Yaya Toure from Manchester City, and finally Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard.
Try picking three or four players out of that lot then, not going to be easy is it that’s for sure, although with Iniesta and Xavi surely a shoe-in for the team then it doesn’t leave much room for anyone else. So, we’ve got spaces for 15 forwards to come, which were announced last (Friday) night, to complete the 55-man shortlist which will have to be further whittled down to 1 from 5 for our final FIFA/FIFPro World XI, and that will surely be another extremely hotly contested section. Although to be honest can you really see past Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for two of the three spaces upfront, because I certainly can’t.