What the Balon d'Or Won't Tell You...

Readers of this blog would be right in wondering why the sudden departure from a strict focus on African football to discuss, of all things, the Ronaldo-Messi rivalry!

My response is to ask for patience...This in reality is about African footballers, and in this case, the specific example of a young African player, Isaac Success...

On the surface of it, and based on number of Balon d'Ors won by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, both players are locked in a head to head battle as the best two players in their generation.

But I think this is the case if we only permit ourselves to look at all the conventional metrics of determining greatness in football. I write this as a fan of both players, but what the Balon d'Or voters and the awards as a whole cannot answer is the question, how do you measure genius?

The history of football is replete with the careers of many great footballers, but few geniuses have graced the beautiful game, and in my view Lionel Messi belongs to this small group, in spite of not winning the World Cup, a failure that belongs to the Argentine Football Association, rather than the player.

Having said this, Cristiano Ronaldo's career and Balon d'Or victories represent the ultimate expression and reward for professional dedication to the sport and to one's craft. It represents at the same time both a shinning example of personal ambition and a reflection of the failures of African footballers.

When many years ago, Ronaldo Koeman, then manager at Ajax expressed the view that many an African player, in that instance, Pius Ikedia, merely played for a contract, and did not show ambition beyond that, I thought he was talking from the hat...

Over the years, I've come to understand some of the frustrations apparently embedded in those statements; some but not all...

Take the case of the young Watford player, Isaac Success, who burst onto the scene at the 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup. As a result of a thigh injury, he only played two games in the tournament. However watching the technique behind his volley in pulling a goal back for Nigeria in a pulsating 3-3 draw with Sweden, it was easy to tell this was a special talent.

That spectacular goal has come to underline much of his career; exceptional at the Santiago Bernabeu for Grenada two years ago; brilliant for Watford recently against Bournemouth; but interspersed with large doses of anonymity.

But lets be clear, I am well aware that many young African players come from poor backgrounds and have typically had to assume responsibility, well beyond their years, a burden that many of their European peers are often not saddled with. But that is not enough excuse!

True, many young African players have been misled into signing unfavorable contracts or forced by financial circumstances to jump at the first contract paper waved at their faces, or been saddled by average European managers without the intelligence (or the patience) to properly harness the talents of the players to the benefit of both the team and the long term future of the player...

However it is also true that too many young African players with the potential to 'do a Ronaldo' have fallen by the wayside from a lack of professional dedication to the sport and their careers, too easily comfortable in the trappings of a contract, and failing to challenge themselves to be the best that their talent allows them to, as Cristiano Ronaldo's story aptly demonstrates, almost from his first day at the Carrington training ground. Nii Odartey Lamptey, Daniel Addo, Christopher Nwosu, Etim Esin....

Sadly I see similar signs of Isaac Success, a player with the potential to play at a much higher level than he has shown thus far, brilliant one day, tripping over his stepovers the next! Too content with where he's at and not showing enough desire to propel himself beyond the here and now...I see similar signs of Kelechi Iheanacho, still struggling with his first touch, going into his second year in the first team squad at City.