There may be a touch of bias here of course but readers of this blog clearly believe that Leo Messi deserved to win this year's Ballon d'Or. With 256 votes (62%) the little Argentinian blew away his rivals. Xavi Hernandez was second with 39 votes pipping Cristiano Ronaldo into third place (37 votes) and Samuel Eto'o was fourth with 34 votes. Apart from the players listed on the poll there were also three votes each for Steven Gerrard and Ronaldinho, and there was also a vote each for "my girlfriend for her ball skills" and for "Nic for his hard work on this blog". Cheers!

I've stuck up another poll now to see who you think is most likely to stop Barça in this season's Champions...

There was a lot of talk last season about Barça's fantastic four. However, Ronaldinho and Thierry Henry failed to perform while Samuel Eto'o and Leo Messi missed a lot of games through injury and hardly ever coincided in the team. This season things have been quite different: with Ronaldinho in Italy the remaining three have been hitting the net with an incredible consistency, so far this season between them the three have scored no fewer than thirty goals in La Liga and ten in the Champions League. Samuel Eto'o has bagged 14 in the league and 3 in Europe with an average of a goal every 79 minutes played. Messi has 9 league goals and 5 in the Champions League and an average of a goal every 91 minutes, while Henry now has 7 in the league and 2 in Europe, his average works...

As expected France Football has announced that this year's Ballon d'Or winner is Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo who earned 446 voting points from the 96 judges. Barça's Leo Messi was runner-up with 281 points while Xavi Hernandez was fifth with 97 points and Samuel Eto'o was seventeenth. Cristiano Ronaldo was always the most likely winner having scored 42 goals in the 2007/2008 season and won the Premiership and the Champions League with Manchester United. Ronaldo can now proudly boast that he is the world's best player. It must be because Messi is from another planet!

The top 20 was as follows:

.1. Cristiano Ronaldo...

The next vote is for who deserves this year's Ballon d'Or. The big...

I thought it would be impossible to improve on the last league home games, but Barça tonight annihilated Valladolid with yet another display of breathtaking attacking football. Four first half goals from an unstoppable Samuel Eto'o gave Barça another big half time lead, but today the second half did not drop in quality as it had against Atletico and Almeria, and goals from Eidur Gudjohnsen and Thierry Henry sealed Barça's biggest win yet under Pep Guardiola.

Valladolid had the first shot on target with a free kick in the second minute but Valdés saved easily. Gudjohnsen missed with a header and Messi had a couple of efforts before Barça took the lead in the 12th minute. Dani Alves found Eto'o with a superb pass from the right...

This was a difficult one this month. Having won six out of six in October there are many players in excellent form at the moment. The defence deserves credit for only conceding two goals, but at the other end we have scored twenty this month. In the end the October Player Of The Month goes to Leo Messi who saved us with two late goals against Shakhtar Donetsk and also scored against Atletico and Basle. Second place goes to September's winner Xavi Hernandez who continues to dazzle in midfield, while Samuel Eto'o is only third despite bagging six goals in four games; he would normally win hands down with such a record but it just goes to...

Fifa today announced their list of 23 finalists for this year's World Player Of The Year award and Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Leo Messi and Samuel Eto'o have all been named in the list. There is also a place for ex-blaugrana Deco. The list is pretty similar to that of France Football's Ballon d'Or but at least Fifa have recognised the merits of Iniesta. The winner will be announced on January 12th and the full list of finalists is as follows:

Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal, Togo)
Sergio Agüero (Atletico Madrid, Argentina)
Andrei Arshavin (Zenit, Russia)
Michael Ballack (Chelsea, Germany)
Gianluigi...

For much of the season the talk has been of the fantastic contribution of Barça's home grown players. Leo Messi is for many people the best player in the world at the present time; Andres Iniesta improves every day and his dribbling skills and defence splitting passes are a joy to watch; while Xavi Hernandez continues to be in excellent form since deservedly winning the best player of Euro 2008 award with Spain. However, Samuel Eto'o is one imported player whose figures this year are spectacular, especially when it comes to playing at Camp Nou.

Eto'o has already bagged twelve goals (nine in La Liga and three in the Champions...

France Football this morning announced the thirty finalists for this year's World Player of the Year award which will be decided in December. Samuel Eto'o, Leo Messi and Xavi Hernandez have all been nominated. How Andres Iniesta did not make the list is beyond me especially when you see someone like Frank Lampard on the list.

The full list is as follows: Adebayor, Agüero, Arshavin, Ballack, Benzema, Buffon, Casillas, Drogba, Eto'o, Fabregas, Gerrard, Ibrahamovich, Kaka, Lampard, Luca Toni, Messi, Pepe, Ribery, Ronaldo, Rooney, Senna, Sergio Ramos, Torres, Van der Saar, Van der Vaart, Van Nistlerooy, Vidic, Villa, Xavi and Zhirkov.

The obvious favourites are Cristiano Ronaldo...