The final verdict on who should win the Ballon d’Or

The polls have been counted and the finalists have been made official. Lionel Messi, Franck Ribery and Cristiano Ronaldo have been shortlisted for the 2013 FIFA Ballon d’Or. Very few will be surprised by trio making the final cut, but the final announcement in the second week of January is far from a foregone conclusion.

Here, we analyze all the three contenders for the prestigious individual award in world football, and give our conclusion on who should win it in five weeks time.

Lionel Messi

Lionel Messi has endured an injury plagued season and is perhaps foir the first time not a favourite for the Ballon d’Or trophy

Messi is seeking to win the award for the unprecedented fifth time in succession, but for the first time in years it is not certain to go to him. 2013 has been one of the most difficult years of his senior career. He may well have scored 45 goals in 46 games for club and country combined, and even may have won the La Liga for the sixth time with Barcelona, but a succession of injuries, however, made football’s Superman look human this year, following on form a calender year in which he netted a record 91 times.

Scoring 40 plus goals and winning the league title means his year was hardly a write-off, but still, if your life depended in 2013 on a player winning you a game of football, then for the first time since he first won the world player of the year in 2008, you might not have have picked him. If the Argentine does go on and win for the fifth consecutive year then it would look like he is winning by default, not merit. The would mean the trophy has no value and voters like creatures of habit.