Chapter 1 Really a Big Deal

In fact, as early as two weeks ago, a major event triggered widespread discussion among Chinese media and fans—UEFA announced the final three-man shortlist for the European Best Player award, and as a representative of Chinese football, Zhou Yi was among them. He and Messi and Ribéry entered the final on-site voting stage.

For Chinese football, Zhou Yi's inclusion was undoubtedly a major event. Because no Chinese player had ever reached this height before, not to mention Chinese players, no Asian player had ever done it. Zhou Yi was the first.

At first, everyone thought it was the Ballon d'Or, but later they realized it was the European Best Player award.

This award is slightly unfamiliar to Chinese fans. In everyone's traditional impression, the two most famous annual awards in international football, which also represent the pinnacle of personal player honors, should be FIFA's "World Player of the Year" and *France Football*'s "European Ballon d'Or."

What is the European Best Player award?

It sounds like it doesn't have much gold content, and there's a lot of fluff. Is it another case of Chinese media habitually gilding their own players' faces and forcibly boasting?

Chinese media quickly launched a popular science campaign, telling everyone that this award is actually very awesome—the predecessor of the European Best Player award should strictly speaking be the "UEFA Club Footballer of the Year" awarded every year before the Champions League draw ceremony.

Chinese fans must have an impression of this. Before the group stage draw ceremony for the new Champions League season every year, the best of the previous season are awarded, including Best Player, Best Forward, Best Midfielder, Best Defender, and Best Goalkeeper. However, many people thought that was the best of the Champions League, but it was not. It was a general evaluation of all European club players, including the player's performance in the club league, domestic cup, Europa League, Champions League, and even national team matches—yes, that's right, national team matches are also included. For example, Zhou Yi is not a player on a European national team, but because he plays for a team in the European league, even his performance representing the Chinese national team will be included in the evaluation.

In fact, this award has nothing to do with the Champions League, but because the Champions League has too much reference value, especially in non-major competition years, performance in the Champions League can almost determine the results of these best awards. Over time, it gives people the impression that these best awards are all for the best in the Champions League.

One thing can prove that this is not the case—the award was founded in the 1997-1998 season, and the first European Club Footballer of the Year was Brazilian striker Ronaldo, who played for Inter Milan that season. He did not participate in the Champions League that season; he participated in the UEFA Cup and helped Inter Milan defeat Lazio in the final to lift the trophy. The pendulum dribble goal in the final became an eternal classic.

After Ronaldo, all the players who could win this award had participated in the Champions League, or even won the Champions League—the only exception was Gianluigi Buffon, the Best Player of the 2002-2003 season. His Juventus lost to AC Milan on penalties in the Champions League final, but Buffon won the Best Player award with his stable and outstanding performance. As a goalkeeper, Buffon deserves to be the top goalkeeper in Europe for winning the Best Player award.

After dispelling the misunderstanding about this award, it is easy to understand that this award is actually very important—in fact, it is not impossible to say that it is the official UEFA version of the "European Footballer of the Year"...

However, due to historical reasons, *France Football* has the long-standing Ballon d'Or, and FIFA's World Player of the Year award had already started in 1991. Compared with them, the European Best Player award, which was first held in 1998, is too young and lacks authority. In particular, this award has to be split into various positions, and its importance and topicality are not as good as the "unique" World Player of the Year and Ballon d'Or.

However, after 2010, this situation changed.

In 2010, FIFA and *France Football* cooperated to merge the World Player of the Year and the Ballon d'Or into the FIFA Ballon d'Or. UEFA felt that it was too unpleasant not to have its own voice in this annual evaluation, not to mention that the first cooperation between FIFA and *France Football* caused trouble. Wesley Sneijder, who won the treble in club honors that year and led the Dutch national team to the final of the South Africa World Cup, was defeated by Messi in the FIFA Ballon d'Or selection and did not even enter the final three-man shortlist. That is to say, he was not even in the top three in the voting stage. Messi's club teammates, Xavi and Iniesta, the midfield core who helped the Spanish national team historically win the World Cup, also lost to Messi. Messi's award caused an uproar in the media, and everyone questioned the authority and professionalism of the FIFA Ballon d'Or.

Even Messi himself was embarrassed about winning this award, and the Catalan media felt that it was really unreasonable not to give it to Xavi.

The Dutch media were angry that Sneijder was not even in the top three.

After such a farce, UEFA, led by Platini, believed that they should respond to the call of the masses and come out to maintain the fairness and authority of football selection.

However, *France Football* had already cooperated with FIFA, and the cooperative relationship would not expire until 2016, and both parties could renew the contract. It is said that Blatter paid 15 million euros to the Amaury Media Group, which owns *France Football*, the organizer of the Ballon d'Or, in order to obtain authorization from the Amaury Group.

Because UEFA did not have the right to use the natural IP of "Ballon d'Or," they thought of the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year award, which they had held for twelve years.

So in 2011, the original UEFA Club Footballer of the Year selection was gone, and it was replaced by the "European Best Player" selection. The original practice of sharing the best by each position was also cancelled. There was no Best Forward, Best Goalkeeper, Best Midfielder, or Best Defender. There was only one Best Player left, representing the most outstanding player among the players playing for European clubs that season.

The difference between this award and FIFA's Ballon d'Or is that it does not use the calendar year as the time period for judging a player's performance, but uses the season as the time unit. Before the start of each season, the most outstanding player in Europe in the previous season is selected.

In order to ensure the authority of the award, UEFA specially cooperated with ESM—do not confuse it with postal express delivery EMS, nor the European Stability Mechanism. ESM is the abbreviation of European Sports Media, an organization founded on June 9, 1989. It is a famous professional print sports media organization, composed of top sports media from various European countries. They have always been the selection organization for the European Golden Shoe and Best Team of the Season every season. The organization is composed of fourteen top professional sports media, including Italy's *Gazzetta dello Sport*, Germany's *Kicker*, *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung*, Spain's *Marca*, Portugal's *A Bola*, England's *World Soccer*, Russia's *Sport Express*, Belgium's *Football Magazine*, Turkey's *Fanatik*, Denmark's *Tipsbladet*, and the Netherlands' *ELF Voetbal*, *De Telegraaf* and other famous media.

In China, *Titan Sports* is also a member.

The authority and professionalism of such an organization are naturally beyond doubt.

UEFA's pulling in the support of the European Sports Media Alliance also greatly increased the gold content of the newly established European Best Player award. You should know why *France Football*'s European Ballon d'Or was always considered a more professional and high-end award than FIFA's World Player of the Year award? It was because of the difference in the selection methods between the two. Compared with FIFA's method of having the coaches and captains of all FIFA member countries vote, the Ballon d'Or used the votes of authoritative European sports media reporters, which was more convincing.

Now UEFA has done the same thing as *France Football*. When the FIFA Ballon d'Or was full of controversy, the sudden emergence of this European Best Player award was naturally quickly welcomed and recognized by the general public and professionals.

Some people even mistakenly regarded this award as the successor to the European Ballon d'Or, which shows the professionalism of this award.

Players also regard this award as an important honor.

For example, in 2012, when Iniesta was elected as the European Season Best Player, Real Madrid star, Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo did not win the award, and he directly showed his disappointment, and was criticized for being unsportsmanlike. If he didn't care about this award, would he have shown it so obviously?

And the famous allusion of "Ronaldo's Three Votes" also happened in the first European Season Best Player award. After Messi was elected as the Best Player, Cristiano Ronaldo was ridiculed as "Ronaldo's Three Votes" because he only got three votes.

The current European Best Player is no longer dispensable, but a resounding honor.

Zhou Yi, as a representative of Chinese players, was selected into this final three-man list, and his historical status is immediately different.

Previously, everyone thought that he had outstanding personal abilities, but lacked the recognition of influential awards. Even if his supporters wanted to say that he was a world-class star, they would face the risk of being criticized. Now it's different.

This is the recognition from the most authoritative European Sports Media Alliance. Who dares to say that Zhou Yi is not a world-class player?

Chinese fans and media are naturally happy for Zhou Yi's selection, but at the same time they are also a little worried...

This is really strange. He has been selected into the final three-man list. What is there to worry about?

What they are worried about is that Zhou Yi's selection this time may be just to accompany the prince to study, just to go through the motions, and the final winner is not him!