I grew up watching the likes of Ronaldo Delima, Luis Figo, Ronaldinho, Kaka Almighty, Owen, Michael Ballack, Beckham, Eto etc. All this stars have once before battled for the FIFA footballer of the year and also ballonD’or before they were merged as one. There were so many good players who competed for the best. This made it difficult to decide the best of them all.
I remember vividly in the year 2004 when Thiery Henry, Ronaldinho and Shevchenko were all nominated, it was a very tough call, it was almost impossible to predict the winner. This gave the award a high competitive value. It was so competitive that I would take a day out to fast and pray for my favorite to win. The superiority between the players back then was at minimum. It was so good that thirty players could be mentioned to have equal value for the top awards.
Soccer turned around and gotten boring in the last decade due to the fact that the award for FIFA best player and ballonD’or has been shared by just two players. Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo have dominated the football community for a decade which might not be fair to other players.
I sometimes wonder if it’s other players not going the extra mile to change this or its FIFA being biased. Is it that Messi and C. Ronaldo are the only players who have got what it takes to be the best. The tussle between this two has left other players playing for the coach and the money. I’m very sure I am not the only one bothered about the situation of soccer in our time.
Other players need to step up their game and aim higher by competing with the best because if something doesn’t change anytime soon, we soccer fans would still need to deal with seeing either Messi or Ronaldo at the top of the game until they finally retire from playing soccer.
I believe it’s getting boring to most fans seeing the same people triumph for over a decade. We need active competition between many players. We all wish for a suspence filled time which we wouldn’t be able to predict the FIFA footballer of year thereby proving the intensity of the competition amongst several players.
Even with this complaint, I still regard players like Neymar, Hazzard, Kane, Mbape, Coutinho, Ali and all others putting in some efforts. I strongly believe they are the change we hope for.
