The Ballon d’Or: Ronaldo or Messi?

Thierry Henry’s verbal fellating of Lionel Messi got me thinking… does Ronaldo really deserve the Ballon d’Or this year? I figured he had it locked down, but I decided to check out some numbers:

Ronaldo GP G A
07/08 46 42 9
08/09 28 16 19

His 86 points scored over 74 games equals 1.16 points per game.

Messi GP G A
07/08 33 16 26
08/09 15 12 27

His 81 points scored over 48 games equals 1.69 points per game.

Just for fun let’s throw Torres in there…

Torres GP G A
07/08 41 30 4
08/09 22 9 9

His 52 points scored over 63 games equals 0.81 points per game.

Now let’s look at some positives and negatives for each player:

Ronaldo
+ Scored 42 goals last season.
+ Won the Champion’s League.
+ Won almost every other award you can think of last year.
+ Manchester United finished first in the Premier League in 07/08.
- Manchester United is in danger of falling out of title contention in 08/09.
- Disappeared at Euro 2008.
- Not a great personal start to the 08/09 season.

Messi
+ Scores a half a point per game more than Ronaldo.
+ Great “team” player.
+ Won gold at the 2008 Olympics.
+ Barcelona is in first place in La Liga in 08/09.
- Barcelona finished third in La Liga in 07/08.
- Barcelona lost to Manchester United in the Champion’s League semi-finals.
- No hardware last year.

Torres
+ Instantly made an impact in the Premier League.
+ All 30 of his goals in 07/08 were scored during open play.
+ Won Euro 2008 with Spain, scored deciding goal in the final.
+ Liverpool is tied for first place in the Premier League in 08/09.
- Liverpool finished fourth last season.
- Liverpool lost to Chelsea in the Champion’s League semi-finals.
- No hardware last year.

So after thinking about each player’s accomplishments last season, I realized that all three of them won a competition involving multiple countries, and each of them also stood out in separate ways individually. Ronaldo had an incredible goal haul, Messi surely assisted every goal scored for Barcelona that was not scored BY him, and Torres outdid everyone’s expectations for his first year during the run of play alone.

Back to the point of this post… who do YOU think deserves it the most?