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...

Not really much surprise here. Despite some excellent performances from his team mates in November, Leo Messi who won the award in October is once again my player of the month. Messi played in 7 games this month, and the only one of those games that he didn't score in was possibly his best game of the month: the 6-0 victory over Valladolid. Toure Yaya comes in second and it is great to see the big man back in such excellent form after a slow start to the season. Captain Carles Puyol is third, he has excelled in every defensive position this month but he was especially impressive in the swimming...

The LFP have announced the kick off times for next weekend's games and Barça's home game with Getafe has been set for Sunday 23rd November with a kick off time of 7pm (local time). Whenever we play Getafe it brings back memories of the amazing goal scored by Leo Messi in April 2007.

Click here to watch the goal again.

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...

Three Barça players, Xavi Hernandez, Carles Puyol and Leo Messi have been named in the ideal XI by the Federación Internacional de Asociaciones de Futbolistas Profesionales. The full team is as follows: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), John Terry (Chelsea), Carles Puyol (Barcelona)  Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United) Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Xavi (Barcelona) Kaká (AC Milan) Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Fernando Torres (Liverpool), Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United).

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...