FIFA Gala Tomorrow

As most of you probably know (us Women's soccer fans are a knowledgable group), the FIFA Gala is tomorrow. That means that the winners of the FIFA World Player of the Year Award will be announced, as will the winners of the World Coach of the Year Award. Once again, here are the nominees for each category:

FIFA Women's World Player of The Year:
Birgit Prinz
Fatmire Bajramaj
Am I forgetting someone...?


FIFA Women's World Coach of the Year:
Pia Sundhage
Silvia Neid
Maren Meinert


The whole presentation, including press conferences before the announcement of the winners, will all be on fifa.com. Here is a description of what you can watch tomorrow (borrowed from FIFA.com):

Women's Press Conference:

The event will kick off at 14.00 CET (8 am ET for us in the USA) with a press conference involving nominees for the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year and the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football awards. Fatmire Bajramaj, Marta, Birgit Prinz, Pia Sundhage and Silvia Neid (editor’s note: Maren Meinert cannot attend) will share their thoughts on being shortlisted for their respective prizes, reflect on the year gone by and look forward to the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup™. You can watch this press conference live on FIFA.com.

Interviews before the Gala:

Between 16.30 and 18.00, Zurich’s lucky inhabitants and any fans having made the trip to the eastern Swiss town will be able to get a glimpse of the stars on show as a red carpet is unfurled in front of the city’s Kongresshaus. It will be a unique opportunity for a close-up look at the players, coaches, former icons and previous award winners present, and once again FIFA.com will be on hand to conduct interviews and bring you a taste of the building atmosphere.


Announcement of the Winners:

At 19.00 the stage will finally be set for the main course – the FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala, which will be streamed live on FIFA.com.


That's how the day will be going. For us located on the East Coast of the USA, we gotta wake up early. For the people on the West Coast, it's probably more of a stay up all night thing! For those of you in Europe, it's in the evening, which is nice. However for us in the USA, since it happens in our morning/afternoon, we have more time to argue and complain about the decisions, because really, when does FIFA ever get anything right?

For the full article on what you can watch and catch on live stream, go to this link:

http://www.fifa.com/ballondor/news/newsid=1360028/index.html

Now as for my prediction, you know what I say. Marta is going to win for the 5th time, whether we like it or not. Do I think she deserves it 5 times? No. Do I think she's that much better than everyone else that she should be getting it for the 5th time? Not at all. Marta is good, but she's not some untouchable godly force in the Women's game that everyone fluffs her up to be, saying things like "only player good enough to singlehandedly raise the competition in WPS" (or something along the lines of that) and "The best player in the Women's game." There are definitely players in Marta's league. I still stand by my opinion that Wambach and Sinclair are just as good, if not better than her. But, we all know how FIFA is. They will pick Marta again. However, I don't feel Prinz or Bajramaj deserve it either. FIFA just plain screwed up once again. How Wambach and Sinclair weren't finalists is completely beyond me. Both of their individual accolades for club and country were better than Prinz and Bajramaj. It should be them up there with Marta. But once again, this is FIFA. As for coaches, I'm a biased USWNT fan so of course I want Sundhage. However, if you look at her records/accolades, she has done a great job coaching the team. The USWNT has only just had their first loss since the 2008 Olympics in the Gold Cup. While much of this success is due to the team's talent and ability, a lot if it can be credited toward the coach. Silvia Neid has done well for Germany, who is on form lately, and Maren Meinert led the German U-20's to victory in the U-20 World Cup.

We'll see what happens tomorrow!

Denise