22 men running around a confined area chasing a spherical object and trying their best to kick the afore-mentioned object into a target which is little more than two poles joined by a horizontal bar. On the face of it, that is the game that we all love. This rather simplistic and truth be told, very unflattering view is one that holds a grain of truth to it and yet it is only a grain, only capturing the bare essentials of a sport that can trigger the imagination of the world’s most cynical person. To describe football as the opening line did would be akin to comparing Beethoven’s finest work to a collection of noises. It would be akin to comparing Mount Everest to a stack of rock, mud, snow and other rubbish heaped together by nature. The draw of the beautiful game is not one that can be described by mere words, at least doing justice to the beautiful game is something beyond the capability of this particular writer. Not that it requires any description. It is a feeling shared the world over. The cliche that football is a global game is overused so much so that its true meaning has been understated. Football after all is something that transcends boundaries, be it, geographical, cultural, racial, and pretty much any other -al that comes to mind.
To celebrate the wonderful global nature of the sport, we at Outside of the Boot are introducing a brand new annual feature on our website, where we recognise the best individual performers of the calendar year across the five primary confederations. Rather than simply picking the winners ourselves, we are relying on the all encompassing nature of not only football but also the wonder that is the Internet to determine the best of 2015. We would call it a democracy but unfortunately our lust for power cannot be suppressed completely. We’ve gone ahead and abused our limited power to shortlist 10 individuals and require your votes to determine the best for 2015. Here’s your opportunity to celebrate the harmony that binds football fans the world over. Or in case you haven’t bought any of the above spiel, we would hardly blame you, simply vote to voice your opinion. Because you know what they say about opinions: Opinions are like blogs, everybody has one.
You are required to vote for one single individual for each of the confederations who stood out. Based on the votes we will compile a final ranking from 10 – 1
