2020 Ballon d’Neds Awards

2020 Ballon d’Neds Awards

James Caughlin

Overnight the news filtered through that football’s 2020 Ballon D’Or will not be awarded due to the ongoing pandemic.

There is no way we could let the season go by without honouring some of the best moments in the world game.

So here we come to fill the void with the first (hopefully) annual Ballon d’Neds awards.

The Alexis Sanchez Award

Despite billions of dollars being thrown around by clubs buying and selling players, sometimes things don’t work out.

Remember when Manchester United paid Alexis Sanchez around £500000 per week?

This year that award goes to Real Madrid who unveiled big money signing Eden Hazard, who cost them a reported transfer fee of €115million (approx. A$187.551m) plus a weekly wage of around £400,000.

https://twitter.com/realmadriden/status/1139563149584154624?s=20

All that cash for 21 appearances and 1 goal.

The McGregor-Khabib Undercard Audition

Lost in the madness of March when everything was getting shut down worldwide, we saw one of the most bizarre matches from the Copa Libertadores Group Stage.

The all Brazillian match featuring Gremio and Internacional devolved into utter chaos as fights, scuffles and disputes broke out between players, substitutes, staff members… actually pretty much everyone involved in the match except the guy with the whistle who was just left standing there wondering what to do.

The Frank Farmer

The 2019/2020 season has been so crazy around the world that you forget before the Premier League kicked off, Mesut Ozil and Sead Kolasinac were attacked in London by a couple of guys on a scooter with a knife.

We saw why Kolasinac is called The Tank though, he stands there, unflinching while being threatened, looking like Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard.

Ozil on the other hand just drove off at the first opening, similar to him fleeing his defensive responsibilities.

The Taylor Swift

At least Ozil still has one friend in the Arsenal team. He’s managed to make plenty of enemies.

Maybe we could give him the benefit of the doubt when he fell out with Unai Emery but when the same thing happened with Mikel Arteta, you had to ask the question, maybe it was something to do with Ozil?

If he can go full Taylor Swift he might get a number one album out of this breakup.

Living the Dream?

We all know Gareth Bale isn’t the most popular player at Real Madrid but he’s certainly not complaining about his situation.

Consigned to the bench with minimal first team involvement, he seems more than happy to turn up, train, collect a payslip and go golfing.

His efforts tweaking Zinedine Zidane and the Madrid hierarchy have been most impressive this season.

Who says he’s not interested in Real Madrid’s matches?

At least he was able to wake up and join in Real Madrid’s trophy celebrations…

In Any Other Job…

It’s been a rough season for Arsenal, dropping a league high 21 points from winning positions so far and quite a lot of the blame can be attributed to one man: David Luiz.

When he signed for the club in August, it was a match made in heaven given his calamitous efforts for Chelsea, PSG and Brazil.

Let’s start with deciding to run by Mo Salah instead of tackling him.

Then there was this penalty concession against Watford late in the match help the hosts draw level.

He marked his return to Stamford Bridge with a red card 26 minutes into the match.

This is not a defensive error but how was he allowed to keep taking free kicks after this?

Then after three months away, he had an eventful 25 minute cameo against Manchester City.

Perhaps most impressively, after all that ARSENAL EXTENDED HIS CONTRACT!!!!

Never change Gunners, please.

Goal of the Season

Ok we should do some positive stories as well, starting with this goal of the season contender, what a hit.

Honourable mention has to go to Nikolai Topor-Stanley for this optimistic hit which came off perfectly… apparently he’s a left footer?

Best Post Match Interview

There’s a lot to love about the story of Wycombe Wanderers reaching the Championship but nothing more than Adebayo Akinfenwa who only added to his cult following with this post match interview.

The Truth is Never Mean

The VAR system has attracted plenty of criticism worldwide but the best might have come from Wellington Phoenix player Louis Fenton whose rant may as well have come straight from Sokkah Twitter.

The Defence Attorney

There’s an old saying among trial lawyers, never finish your closing until you think you have convinced everyone of your argument.

Robbie Slater did his best impression of Perry Mason after October’s Sydney Derby, trying to explain whether or not the ball crossed the goal line citing camera angles, physics, maths and possibly a little bit of French.

Lost in the aftermath was his efforts trying to expand on his thoughts a couple of days later.