Messi Wins the World Player Of The Year Award

Lionel Messi of Barca Adjudged "The Best Player In The World"

Exactly one day after helping Barca secure the World Club Championship with his "Goal from the Heart", Lionel Messi was adjudged the as the FIFA World Player of the Year. It come as no surprise as everyone expected him to win this hands down. Messi secured 1073 points and the second placed Ronaldo secured 352 points. Barca's Xavi Hernandez came third with 196 points followed by Kaka with 190 points and Iniesta with 134 points. The inaugral FIFA Puskás Award for the 'most beautiful goal' of the year went Ronaldo for his goal against FC Porto. Ronaldo's goal secured 17.68 percent of total votes, meanwhile Iniesta's important strike against Chelsea came second bagging 15.64 percent of votes. Lionel Messi has expressed his hapines of becoming the first Argentinian to win the award - "It’s lovely to get this recognition from colleagues and coaches. That makes it even more important. The fact that I’m the first Argentinian to win it is also a great honour." FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year award went once again to Brazil's Marta, who incidently has created history by winning her fourth World Player award. The voting pattern went in expected lines but I still believe it is a great injustice to Xavi and Iniesta after being ranked at three and five. Xavi had a better season than Ronaldo for Spain and Barca but still finished thrid behind Ronaldo. The same with Iniesta who also had a very good season atleast better than what Kaka had. But it looks like this is the order of the day, you got to be flambouyant to secure votes in these awards.

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Barca To Face Stuttgart

I missed to write about the Champions league draw. FC Barcelona got one of the easiest pairing with Stuttgart as opponent. No offence meant to Stuttgart fans and players, but there was a potential chance of facing bayern, AC Milan or Lyon. The first leg of the tie takes place in Stuttgart on 23rd of February and the reaturn leg will take place in Camp Nou on 17th of March. Ex-Barca player Hleb is in the squad of Stuttgart and will make his first return to Camp Nou after the transfer. Stuttgart had a great last season but they are way off colour this season. Bundesliga has reached the half-way mark and Stuttgart lie in the 15th position. So Barca definitely could not have asked for a much better tie. Meanwhile all across Europe there has been some interesting paring for the knockout stage. Italina teams AC Milan and Inter will face Manchester United and Chelsea respectively. The English teams will definitely have the advantage of playing the second leg at home, even then an English - Italian encounter always is volatile.

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World Club Cup Final Highlights

Third Time Lucky For Barca; Barca - 2, Estudiantes - 1

FC Barcelona won the 2009 World Club Cup by defeating South American Champions, Estudiantes by two goals to one. Estudiantes went ahead in the first half through Bosselli's goal, Barca left it late to grab an equaliser. Actually the equaliser came in the 88th minute from Pedro's header and Lionel Messi scored a rather beautiful goal with his chest in the second half of second half, to gift Barca their first triump at World stage. With this triump, Barca have won six trophies in 2009. Estudiantes might have been hard done for a momentary lapse of cocentration late in the second half, but Barca were the best team overall. With Iniesta absent Guardiola chose a midfield which had Xavi and Keita along with Busquets.Busquets was preferred Bosellionce again ahead of Toure but overall Toure had greater authority on the match than Guardiola's favourite. Messi, Ibrahmovic and Henry lined up in the offence. The defense had the familiar look with Alves, Puyol, Pique and Abidal lining up together.

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Champions League Draw Tonight

FC Barcelona will come to know about their opponent in knock-out stage of Champions league tonight. The draw will take place at UEFA Headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. Barca's potential opponents are Bayern Munchen, AC Milan, CSKA Moskva, Porto, Lyon, Stuttgart and Olympiacos. AC Milan with ex-Barca star Ronaldinho. Bayern, Lyon, CSKA and ex-Barca star Hleb featuring Stuttgart all are tough opponents in that group. Even though AC Milan is a pale shadow of their illustrous past, they feature in my list of "should avoid" teams. But a greater look at the other opponents also point to us a fact that this year there may not be any easy fixtures. Barca will be playing the second leg at home, courtesy of emerging as group winners. Bayern Munchen destroyed Juventus away on their way to the knock-out stage, meanwhile Lyon made it through a tough group featuring Fiorentina, Liverpool and themselves. So they all have form in their favour but historically we have done well against these teams.

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