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CRISTIANO - NUMBER ONE, ARSHAVIN - SIX
For the first time in the post-Soviet history a Russian player got
into the six best European players in the survey of France Football magazine.
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Andrei Arshavin Photo SPORT
EXPRESS
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The 23-year old forward of the Portuguese national team
and Manchester United Cristiano Ronaldo was awarded Golden Ball as the
best European footballer of the year 2008 while the Russian star Arshavin
was sixth in the voting.
This year the number of nominees for the Golden Ball was reduced from
50 to 30 and two Russians were bestowed in this number - Andrei Arshavin
and Yuri Zhirkov.
"I agree with the opinion of the journalists [journalists of 96 countries
were giving their votes for the candidates]," said Arshavin. "I
was imaging the bets five quite this way. I only thought David Villa would
have a higher place."
"I can call my result as success. But I should treat it calmly as
in such competitions there is only one winner and all others are losers."
"And that doe not really matter how you lose. Yuri Zhirkov has got
no votes and what has it changed? Did he begin to play worse? No, he is
still a player of a very high level and it is not his problem that he
was not mentioned in the form. He is not that widely promoted in Europe,
that is all."
The results of the votes:
1. Cristiano Ronaldo - 446 points
2. Lionel Messi - 281 points
3. Fernando Torres - 179 points
4. Iker Casillas - 133 points
5. Xavi - 97 points
6. Andrei Arshavin - 67 points
7. David Villa - 55 points
8. Kaka - 31 points
9. Zlatan Ibrahimovic - 30 points
10. Steven Gerrard - 28 points
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26. Yuri Zhirkov, Karim Benzema, Pepe, Luka Toni, Rafael van der Vaart
- 0 points
Sport
Express Daily, 03 Dec 2008
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