Messi mesmerises world football

1.744623-1815859914 — Lionel Messi of Argentina poses with the trophy after winning the Fifa Ballon d’Or 2010 during the award gala held at the Kongresshaus in Zurich on Monday. Image Credit: EPA

Zurich: Argentina's Lionel Messi won the Fifa World Player of the Year for the second time in a row on Monday and Jose Mourinho walked off with the coach's award, leaving Spain's World Cup winners disappointed.

Messi surprisingly held off Barcelona team mates Andres Iniesta and Xavi, second and third respectively, to win the newly-created Fifa Ballon D'Or, a fusion of the previously separate annual awards handed out by Fifa and France Football magazine.

Mourinho, now with Real Madrid, won the inaugural Coach of the Year award after leading Inter Milan to a Champions League, Serie A and Italian Cup treble.

The honour went to the self-styled Special One, who described himself afterwards as "proudly Portuguese", at the expense of Spain's World Cup-winning coach Vicente del Bosque, whos was second, and Barcelona's Pep Guardiola, who placed third.

"The most important trophies for me are the collective ones, not the individual ones.

"But this is a historic trophy for me and Portuguese football," Mourinho told reporters.

He edged out Del Bosque with 35.92 per cent of the votes against the Spaniard's 33.08 per cent.

Spanish empty-handed

Iniesta and Xavi had been favourites after helping Spain win last year's World Cup while Messi had failed to score a goal or produce his best form at the tournament in South Afica.

"It was just good to be here with my team mates," said Messi, who looked as surprised as anyone by the result which was announced by Barcelona coach Guardiola.

"I'd like to share this with my team mates, without whom I would not be here, and ... with all Argentines."

Messi won surprisingly easily, polling 22.65 per cent of the votes to Iniesta's 17.36 per cent and Xavi's 16.48 per cent.

Messi produced some scintillating performances for his club Barcelona last year, but failed in the World Cup to inspire Argentina who were knocked out in the quarter-finals in South Africa.

It was the first time the award was given since the decision to unite Fifa's World Player of the Year with France Football magazine's older Ballon D'Or.

Messi won both awards last season.

The only Spanish winner of either prize was Luis Suarez who won the Ballon D'Or in 1960.

Sole consolation

Spain's only consolation was that they had six players in the world team of the year, Iniesta and Xavi joined by Spanish custodian and captain Iker Casillas, David Villa, Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique.

The others in the line-up were Brazilians Lucio and Maicon, Dutchman Wesley Sneijder, Portugal's star Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi himself.

Votes for the players and coaches awards were cast by the coaches and captains of national teams and by selected journalists while 50,000 professional players took part in the poll for the world eleven.

A host of other awards were handed out by Fifa with South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu and the Haitian women's under-17 team among other winners.

The 79-year-old archbiship Tutu, who used his church pulpit as a platform to help bring down apartheid, took the Fifa presidential Award.

The Haitian team were given the Fair Play award for taking part in the CONCACAF under-17 women's championship in Costa Rica two months after the huge earthquake which devastated their country at the start of last year.

Fifa's goal of the year award went to Turkish player Hamit Altintop for a spectacular volley against Kazakhstan. Brazil's Martha was named women's Player of the Year for the fifth time in a row.

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