{"id":18208,"date":"2011-01-11T10:39:36","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T15:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=18208"},"modified":"2011-01-11T10:39:36","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T15:39:36","slug":"kallon-says-king-messi-deserves-fifa-ballon-dor-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=18208","title":{"rendered":"Kallon says King Messi deserves FIFA Ballon D\u2019or award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sierra Leone\u2019s most high profile player Mohamed Kallon has said that Lionel Messi deserves the 2010 FIFA Ballon D\u2019or award because as he puts it \u201che\u2019s simply the best\u2019.\u00a0<em> (Photo: <strong><\/strong><strong>Lionel <\/strong>Messi with the 2010 FIFA Ballon D&#8217;or)<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The\u00a0 23-year old Argentine was named the winner of the merger FIFA Ballon d\u2019or award at a ceremony in Zurich on Monday night beating Barcelona team-mates Andres Iniesta and Xavi.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The award is based on votes cast by captain and coaches of national teams as well as journalists from around the world including the President of the Sports Writers Association of Sierra Leone (SWASAL) Mohamed Fajah Barrie.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_18210\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><\/strong><strong><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Mohamed-Kallon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18210\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-18210\" title=\"Mohamed Kallon\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Mohamed-Kallon-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/strong><p id=\"caption-attachment-18210\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mohamed Kallon<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cMessi didn\u2019t win the World Cup but in my opinion he was voted the best because he scored lot of goals by far than Iniesta and Xavi,\u201d Kallon told <em>sierraleonefootball.com<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He added: \u201cAn attacker always gets an edge over midfielders or defenders when it comes to such an award because he scores more goals. Besides Messi is very skilful and is simply the best in his generation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Indeed Messi is regarded by many as the most gifted footballer of his generation, he scored an impressive 60 goals for club and country in 2010.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In 2009 he won the FIFA and Ballon d\u2019or awards separately and many thought this time round Iniesta and Xavi were favourites to clinch the most prestigious individual award in world football.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Iniesta\u2019s goal in the grand finale against Netherlands won the 2010 World Cup in South Africa for Spain last summer, and Xavi, was the play-maker of the Spanish side. The three players won the 2009\/2010 Spanish Laliga title with Barelona.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">After receiving the award Messi said: \u201cI\u2019m surprised to win but pleased to be here with my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He added: \u201cTo win it makes it even more special. I want to share it with all of my friends, my family, all the Barcelonistas and the Argentinians.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Real Madrid\u2019s Jose Murinho won the best coaching prize award mainly for winning the treble with Inter Milan including the prestigious UEFA Champions League. He became the first winner of the award.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Brazilian Marta retained the FIFA Women\u2019s player of the year award.<\/p>\n<p><em>By Mohamed Fajah Barrie in Freetown <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sierra Leone\u2019s most high profile player Mohamed Kallon has said that Lionel Messi deserves the 2010 FIFA Ballon D\u2019or award because as he puts it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[824,1],"tags":[2560,2348,5191],"class_list":["post-18208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-uncategorized","tag-lionel-messi","tag-mohamed-kallon","tag-sierra-leone-footballers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}