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Who should win the Golden Ball?

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Photo by ISIphotos.com

FIFA announced its 10 finalists for the World Cup's Golden Ball Award Friday, with Spain garnering three of the nominees.

David Villa, Xavi and Andres Iniesta are joined by Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Mesut Ozil, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Diego Forlan, Asamoah Gyan and Lionel Messi on the final ballot.

Villa and Sneijder lead the tournament with five goals apiece and are front-runners for the Golden Boot, although Forlan, Miroslav Klose and Thomas Mueller could surpass them with multiple-goal outputs in the third-place match.

Mueller is among the three finalists for the Best Young Player award along with Mexico's Giovani Dos Santos and Ghana's Andre Ayew.

Who do you think should win the Golden Ball? Do you think anybody was snubbed from the list of finalists for either award?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Are you nuts? Did you see any of the first round games? Messi was Argentina’s best player in all three games. Higuain pretty much scored off of Messi’s shot rebounds almost every time, same with Palermo against Greece. People that are saying he had zero impact don’t know anything about soccer.

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  2. I disagree about Messi not having an impact in this tournament. Almost all of Argentina’s goals came from a play that he was directly involved. He was probably the best player in the tournament that didn’t score a goal. The only game he was a non-factor in was against Germany. Gyan was the best African player in the tournament as well. I see no problems with any of the choices.

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  3. i think there’s all of this disappointment with gyan’s inclusion because of his penalty miss, but he has been one of the players with the largest impact on his team’s success. a goal in extra time of the round of 16, your team’s leading scorer and orchestrator of the attack certainly qualifies you to be in the top 10, especially if your team gets to the quarterfinals.

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  4. messi did not have a strong tournament. he had little impact on any of the games he played in, and did not score any goals. for me, messi was a total disappointment in this world cup and should be nowhere near the list.

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  5. Gio was excellent in each of Mexico’s games, whether or not he scored.

    Sadly, I think Muller is as deserving as anyone, despite being locked into the young player category. Other guys who impressed, in no order and in addition to the obvious Forlan, Xavi, Schweiny and Sneijder, Robinho [though I loathe him], Bougherra, Quagliarella in 45 mins, Klose, Heitinga, Fabio Coentrao, Honda, and Kevin Prince Boateng.

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  6. 1. I have no problem with Messi on that list. If you’re an American who knows little about soccer and just looks at brief highlight clips or how many goals someone scored, than Messi’s inclusion is a mistake. But if you keep in mind that he was the best player on probably the best attacking team in the tournament through the quarterfinals, looked good in every match, every team focused on defending him and he created chances, nah–I don’t have a problem with him on the list.

    2. In terms of impact, Gyan makes sense. As someone else pointed out–scored the winning or tying goal in 3 matches. And was probably the most irreplaceable player on a team that made the quarters.

    3. Altidore? Look, I’m a big USA fan, but here’s the deal–the USA went home for two primary reasons: continually giving up an early goal and failure of our frontline to finish. We got goals from midfielders. We showed offense talent. We shut teams down defensively at times. But we always put ourselves behind the eight ball every match (but Algeria) and then our forwards couldn’t finish. And Altidore played more than anyone else. Besides, Muller was not only the best young player but probably should have been considered one of the top 7-8 people for the Golden Ball. He scored or assisted on 2/3rds of Germany’s scores in this tournament.

    4. I’m a bit put out by all the Spanish candidates. Least we forget, Spain didn’t win all 3 of their matches in the group stage. They were impressive against Germany and acquired a lot of rep and street cred the past 2 years. But this tournament, I’d argue that Brazil, Germany, Argentina all played better soccer over a longer period of time. The only Spaniard I’d put on the list is Villa–b/c without them they would not have gotten out of their group, let alone advanced.

    5. For me, the Golden Ball goes to Diego Forlan. Scored goals, led the team, made a big difference on the field and his team played well. Very hard to argue with any of that.

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  7. Obviously YOU know nothing about football. He virtually had no impact on the game most of the time, he had 3 assists, and that may be decent for a fringe or bench player, but he is arguably the best player in the world!! As the best player in the world, you must simply do better on such a huge stage.

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  8. The real head scratcher is Giovanni Dos Santos for young player of the tournament? Did he even score OR get an assist? I’m pretty sure he didn’t, there has got to be a better option than him.

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  9. ya those are fair points. i don’t think he had a poor tournament at all, i agree he had a good one. my opinion is just that if he played for sayyyyy slovakia instead of ghana he wouldn’t have been on the list. the african teams didn’t show well this tournament, it’s time for blatter to quit pretending.

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  10. Man looking at it again on in the highlights, what is DeMerit doing backpedaling so much? Rico starts it all with his godawful giveaway but the D just does not react well.

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  11. Agree with you on Rico’s shocker of a tourney (and I was one of the few that liked the guy pre-World Cup), but that first Ghana goal was atrocious all around. After Rico’s maddening giveaway DeMerit gives Kevin Prince tons of space and Timmy just honestly does not do well with a very stoppable shot.

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  13. yr ridiculous you should be ashamed

    you dk wtf your talking about and obviously know NOTHING about soccer

    out of the 10 goals argentina made this cup, he probably assisted 9 of them

    people like you disgust me, ignorant idiot. goals isn’t everything dumbass.

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