Fifa Ballon d’Or: Cristiano Ronaldo delivered on pitch as well as red carpet

Zurich: It is not about the fame, the strutting in front of cameras or the unveiling of a statue to a living legend.

Some people succumb to intoxication at the celebrity aura surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo when they should really be celebrating a technical marvel, a formidable athlete, a relentless goal machine, a Champions League winner, a player who thrills audiences and was a truly worthy recipient of the Ballon d’Or on Monday.

Forget the red carpet. Ronaldo delivers on the greensward. He certainly received this judge’s vote. For the 173 journalists, 184 national coaches and 184 national team captains, the initial Ballon d’Or long-list of 23 presented plenty of exceptional candidates to consider in an epic World Cup and Champions League year.

These ranged from, among others, Manuel Neuer to Philipp Lahm, Lionel Messi to Angel di Maria, Thomas Mueller to Arjen Robben as well as Ronaldo, the holder.

Criteria vary among individual judges. For this correspondent, the game is about beauty, about expressing natural or nurtured gifts but, with due apologies to the purists, football is also about winning, about the muck and nettles pursuit of medals.

Let’s not tip-toe around this: finishing runners-up is simply bridesmaid or best man country, close to joy but not close enough.

Messi inevitably invaded deliberations. He is one of the greats, a player probably ranking among the top five of all time, just below the summit occupied by Pele and Diego Maradona. The brutal fact for Messi’s many admirers, though, is that this was a “nearly” year for Barcelona’s sublime Argentine.

Even if not at his optimum in 2014, Messi still managed 58 goals in 66 games, providing 21 assists, and shredding the scoring sections of La Liga and Champions League record books. Messi did not, however, grasp one of the major honours, the Champions League, domestic league or World Cup, although he went close in Rio last July.

Any sanguine analysis of the 2014 Ballon d’Or ultimately leads to a comparison of the merits of Real Madrid’s Ronaldo and Bayern Munich’s Neuer, who won the Bundesliga and reinvented the art of goalkeeping as Germany deservedly lifted the World Cup ahead of Messi’s Argentina at the Maracana.

Neuer’s credentials were formidable, including the domestic double and then those performances at the World Cup, the saves that broke the spirit of opponents, the quickness from his line that closed down attackers, frequently out of his area, followed by the measured distribution that launched attacks.

Neuer was nine-tenths Sepp Maier to one-tenth Franz Beckenbauer. Safe Hans conceded only four goals in 690 minutes at the World Cup, an astonishing figure even taking into account the robustness of the defence in front of him.

But it had to be Ronaldo. Even for gnarled press-box inhabitants, there was a quickening of movement towards grounds graced by the Portuguese attacker in 2014.

Onlookers felt this appreciation of history in the making, of a privilege of seeing a serial match-winner at his most irresistible. Ronaldo recorded 61 goals in 60 games, and created 22 goals for others, not a bad show of team-mindedness for a player perceived as selfish.

A legitimate debate can be held about Ronaldo’s exact contribution to the 2014 Champions League final itself, when the interventions of Di Maria and Sergio Ramos arguably had more of an impact for Real in Lisbon, but he still scored, and he certainly helped drive his team towards that climax with Atletico Madrid, that date with La Decima destiny.

Throughout the knockout stages, Ronaldo produced, scoring braces home and away against Schalke, and his footwork to take the ball past Joel Matip was a mixture of the artist and the assassin. He struck in the Bernabeu against Borussia Dortmund, shimmying past Roman Weidenfeller, and then beat Neuer twice at the Allianz.

In scoring 17 times, Ronaldo bestrode Europe. Nobody has netted as many in a European season, not Messi, not Jose Altafini. Ronaldo embodied and powered Real’s pursuit of La Decima.

Later that summer, in Brazil, Ronaldo struggled with tendinitis, although he raised himself against the United States in that memorable 2-2 draw and then found the mark against Ghana, but Portugal failed to escape a group dominated by Neuer’s Germany.

If Ronaldo deservedly pipped Neuer in this judge’s voting, then Lahm earned my vote for third ahead of Messi for captaining Bayern and Germany to great heights, for his versatility, intelligence and leadership. Lahm was a great winner in 2014.

In voting for Fifa World Coach of the Year, the first reaction was that it was a surprise that Jorge Luis Pinto failed to make the 10-man long-list, following Costa Rica’s feats in reaching the quarter-finals of the World Cup. But trophies matter.

Although Joachim Loew was presented with the award in Zurich following Germany’s Maracana triumph, I felt Diego Simeone’s achievement in guiding Atletico Madrid to La Liga, breaking the Real-Barca duopoly, to be the real coaching feat of the year.

With their leader exuding supreme authority, Simeone’s players always looked highly motivated and organised. Loew was my second choice, just ahead of Carlo Ancelotti, of Ronaldo’s mighty Real.

— The Daily Telegraph