Ballon D'Or
The short list for the Ballon D'Or is to be announced on Dec 1. The 23 nominees will be whittled down to 3. It looks like it will be Ronaldo and Messi and then one of Muller, Neymar and Rodriguez on the short list. Perhaps Rodriguez is being considered because he was snubbed for the WC2014 player of the tournament award where he scored in every match, was awarded the goal of the tournament and the Golden Boot for top scorer. Apart from the World Cup though, he wasn't really a stand out player when the full year is taken into account and in my opinion probably shouldn't be in the reckoning here. Take a look at the official criteria here . The award is for achievements during the period 30 November 2013 to 21 November 2014 inclusive and takes into account on and off the pitch activity (Art 2 & 3). I suspect that the jury (voted on by players, coaches and media) won't be pulling out the calendars and checking who scored what and when. ...