Why Philipp Lahm deserves to win the Ballon d'Or, but won't

Philipp Lahm

If you are captain of the team that wins the treble, which includes the much celebrated Champions League treble, you would be forgiven to think that you have a teeny bit chance of being named World Player of the Year and given the award named the FIFA Ballon d’Or. Of course, being the captain of a supremely talented team does not mean being captain entitles you to the said award, but if you are Philipp Lahm, then you most certainly deserve it.

As we already know, the award was given to Cristiano Ronaldo last season, and Lahm did not even make it to the final three. When you look back at 2013 and see if Ronaldo really did have a defining season like that of Lahm, then you would have to say no. Not only did he not win anything at club level, Portugal had to endure a playoff to qualify for the World Cup after finishing behind Russia in their group.

True, Franck Ribery did make it to the top three, but the wider question to be asked here is, why do defenders get step-motherly treatment when it comes to handing out awards and recognizing them on a world stage? It is not a coincidence that only goal scorers have ever been given the award over the years. It has always been for long now that football is partial to the ones who create goals and more than that, to the ones who do the scoring.

Why defenders should not be overlooked

It is arguable that goals win matches, and so the ones directly responsible for them are obviously going to be celebrated. But that’s a bias coming out of a visual error, if you will. Goals are more visible and as the team with the most goals wins, it is natural to assume they get the points to progress in a league or a cup competition. But a defender’s job is highly underrated and underappreciated. For every goal that the crowd cheers for and the commentators fawn upon, there are numerous tackles, interceptions and clearances that go unnoticed, or at the most given perfunctory praise.

But that’s the job of the defender, I hear you say. But that just opens a can of worms. Isn’t the job of the striker to score goals? Why, then, should they get more praise for just doing their job and the defenders should not? Yes, goal line clearances are praised, but any leaping goal line clearance from a defender means one thing: a collective failure of the team’s defence. Therefore, you do not see it happening often, and for the team you support, you will surely hope it doesn’t happen at all.

Bayern Munich’s Philipp Lahm tackles Manchester City’s David Silva in a UEFA Champions League match.

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The argument about goals giving points has also been shown to be false, in the book The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football Is Wrong by Chris Anderson and David Sally. According to their research of games in the past decade in the Premier League, clean sheets earn an average of 2.5 points per game when compared to goals scored, which only earned an average of 1 point per game. There is also the oft repeated adage that goals win you games, but clean sheets win you titles. And yet, it is a part of the game that does not get its just respect.

Why Lahm deserves a Ballon d’Or

For Philipp Lahm to have been passed up from the Ballon d’Or consideration is an injustice that is unexplainable. For this, we don’t even have to look at the stats, and even if we did, they wouldn’t show the full picture. It is a widely held view that Lahm is one of the world’s best players, not just a defender.

He is versatile, and irrespective of where you play him, he will not falter and give you a world class performance. In fact, throughout his career, he’s been asked to play in various positions, and he’s gone about the job as if it was his natural position. Pep Guardiola even claimed that Lahm was the most complete footballer he ever worked with.

"Lahm is perhaps the most intelligent player I have ever trained in my career. He is at another level." - Pep Guardiola

And yet, it is doubtful he’ll make it into the top three this time too. Ever since the Ballon d’Or had been instituted, there have been a grand total of four players who won it that can be considered defensive players – Franz Beckenbauer, Lev Yashin, Matthias Sammer and Fabio Cannavaro. In fact, for Cannovaro to be recognized for the award, he had to captain the Italian team to an unlikely World Cup win. That’s what it takes for a defender to win the award. To paraphrase comedian Chris Rock, a defender has to fly for something a striker can walk to.

Lahm, for his part, has gone on and done that too, winning the World Cup with Germany. Maybe, this will be the trigger for him to win the Ballon d’Or this time around. Don’t hold your breath though.