Spanish XI

FIFA recently announced its world XI team for the year 2012, and as Easy would say, most people found it rather 'interesting.' The entire team came from la liga, in fact only Falcao wasn't from either Real Madrid or Barcelona. Clearly in the eyes of Mr Blatter and Co la liga is miles ahead of all the other top leagues in Europe. In fact, there were only two changes from the worldXI of the previous year, Rooney and Vidic making way for Falcao and Marcelo. Of course we cannot argue the inclusion of certain players like Ronaldo and Messi in the team, but the inclusion of others does raise a couple of eye brows. There's no doubting that all the players included in the team are immensely talented but in all honesty there was nothing exceptional about some of their performances. Some players were included solely because of their reputation, i could single out Casillas and Xavi in this case. Players like Pirlo, Kompany, Neuer or even the man of the moment RVP(I just had to include him) had phenomenal years and this  makes us wonder what selection criteria was used.
  FIFA does little to exonerate itself from claims that it is biased in its selection criteria, for example in selecting the player of the year in 2011, the number of trophies won were considered whereas this year it seems the number of goals scored counted more. Barcelona won team of the year for 2012 despite having won only the Copa del Rey whilst other teams had notable achievements eg Juventus went unbeaten for an entire season. The fact that there have been some reports of some  players, coaches and journalists claiming that the votes released by FIFA  were in fact not their own further strengthens the belief that FIFA is biased ( don't you just love the conspiracy theories?)

In my personal opinion the world XI team should have been balanced across all top  leagues to recognize the achievements of non-Spanish teams. La liga may be home to the two biggest teams in football right now but to me the EPL is far more exciting, who can forget the heartbreak ( or joy in some circles) of Aguero's last minute winner for City last season? All the derbies and rivalries that the  EPL comes with make it a cut above the rest.

Munya Mupa
FIFA's had its say on what transpired in the world of soccer last year, I've had mine and undoubtedly other people will have their own opinions too but like they said in junior school at the end of the day football  is the winner despite the arguments over who the best players are, so here's to another great year of watching the most beautiful sport in the world!