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Stories
Paul Kelly looks at how the award for the world’s best player has evolved since 1956
In Paris three years ago, after Cristiano Ronaldo became the fourth Manchester United player to win the Ballon d’Or presented by France Football magazine, Alex Ferguson was asked which Old Trafford legends he considered unlucky not to have lifted the prize. “Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs,” he replied. No Roy Keane? No David Beckham? Ferguson’s wrong side is a lonely place to be.
The Brazilian tradition of exporting talented footballers to the rest of the world may be changing. Robert Shaw reports
The new season in Brazil kicked off in January with an unusual sight: four of the country’s biggest stars over the last two decades (Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Roberto Carlos and Ronaldinho) were playing for local clubs. Admittedly this curious spectacle did not last long. Corinthians’ cataclysmic exit from the Copa Libertadores saw Roberto Carlos fleeing to another big pay day in Russian football and Ronaldo bringing forward his retirement.
Csaba Abrahall analyses part of our regular football coverage that often goes unnoticed – the subtitles
Losing the Champions League final was obviously a disappointment for Sir Alex Ferguson. Even so, viewers of the teletext subtitles accompanying ITV’s broadcast may have been surprised to learn that it represented his “most painful urine defeat”. Mistakes such as this are not uncommon in the subtitling of live football, not because it is the work of illiterate fools with no football knowledge, but because real-time subtitling is fiendishly difficult.
AC Milan once outbid Barcelona for his services, but three years later he was on the Bolton bench. James Calder reports on a player once known as “Killer”
Few players cause as much head-scratching as the one-season wonder. Former AC Milan and Bolton misfit Javi Moreno is one such accidental hero.