Why Franck Ribery Deserves the Ballon d'Or over Ronaldo and
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Franck Ribery Deserves the Ballon d'Or over Ronaldo and Messi
(Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)  FIFA released its
Ballon d'Or shortlist on Tuesday, which includes usual suspects
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as well as a six-player
contingent from treble-winners Bayern Munich, including
recently-crowned UEFA Best Player in Europe, Franck Ribery.
Messi and Ronaldo have both had strong performances in 2013, but
the only just result this year would be for FIFA to honor a
player from Bayern. Although the award is officially designated
as "individual," no player operates in a vacuum, and team
success speaks in ways that expose the limitations of simple and
isolated statistics like goals scored.  Quite simply, if scoring
a lot of goals over the course of the year was all that mattered
in football, Ronaldo's Real Madrid and Messi's Barcelona would
have competed in the Champions League