Golden Ball award or “Adidas Golden Ball” award is given to the most outstanding player of FIFA World Cup. The winner is chosen by the FIFA technical committee and the representives of the media. It is to be seen who wins it in the 2014 edition as the tournament has seen so many brilliant individual performances.
It is to be noted that the second and third best players of the tournament are awarded the ‘Silver Ball’ and ‘Bronze Ball’ awards. Germany’s legendary goalkeeper, Oliver Kahn won the prestigious award in 2002 and going by the performances of goalkeepers so far, will it to go to another goal keeper this year? You can check the contenders for Golden Glove here
Here are the likely contenders for the award in terms of total goals, assists and Man of the Match awards:
Player | Team | Number of goals | Number of assists | Appearances | Man of the Match awards |
James Rodriguez | Colombia | 6 | 2 | 5 | 3 |
Thomas Muller | Germany | 5 | 3 | 6 | 2 |
Lionel Messi | Argentina | 4 | 1 | 6 | 4 |
Neymar | Brazil | 4 | 1 | 5 | 1 |
Karim Benzema | France | 3 | 2 | 5 | 2 |
Arjen Robben | Netherlands | 3 | 1 | 6 | 4 |
Robin van Persie | Netherlands | 3 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Enner Valencia | Ecuador | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
Xherdan Shaqiri | Switzerland | 3 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
Andre Schurrle | Germany | 3 | 0 | 6 | 0 |