Photo Courtesy: http://toptenslides.com/ FIFA Ballon d' Or is the highest tier of the individual award given to the best football player each year. Previously, Ballon d'Or and FIFA player of the year were two separate awards given by French Football Federation and FIFA respectively. However, since 2010, they have merged into a single award and every football follower in the world knows, only 2 people have managed to claim it till date. Needless to mention, they are Argentine forward Lionel Messi and Portuguese winger Christiano Ronaldo for three and two times respectively. With great anticipation this year, all football fanatics were glued to the TV, Internet or other sources of news during the award ceremony. Through a voting system which comprises of managers, journalists and other professional players, it was awarded to Christiano Ronaldo two times in a row. It is not surprising to say that the forthcoming awards will also be shared between these two geniuses. Many sportsmen and professionals believed that he deserved to win, while many believed Messi’s contribution to his club and country alike was title worthy.  The opinion is different everywhere, and even in DWIT college, everyone presented their own opinion when asked. We conducted our survey to see what majority of people thought of this year’s award and an online questionnaire was sent to all the students of the college. Here is what we received: “Well, Cristiano Ronaldo is distinctly the best performer of last year. Although he could not shine in the World Cup, it is an undeniable fact that Real Madrid achieved the double due to his hard work and dedication.” –Bidur Bastola “He has proved his worth by scoring highest no. of goals in a calendar year. He won La Decima with Real Madrid, broke no. of records such as highest no. of goals in Champions league. He has won several individual awards.” –Manoj Gyawali "Well he did not just buy it like some cheap toy. Day and night of endless training, never giving up spirit, and motivation from the past true legends contributed a lot in winning him the Ballon d'Or. I do not say compare him with your football heroes just because they did not win. I say the effort was not upto the mark, the pain was not enough and the hatred was not strong enough to drive them toward their goal. Ronaldo has excellent footwork and his body movements is too good which makes prediction of next move almost impossible for any defender in his path. He scored 600+ goals which is above the average and also his running ability is good than a marathon athlete for a guy that big."- Alien Khadka “Manuel Neuer is the deserving player. He has contributed excellently from both the jersey of Bayern Munchen and National team of Germany. Messi has given an average performance from jersey of FC Barcelona and National Team of Argentina. He is the only player who has listed in Ballon d'Or for successive 8 years and won it 4 times. So, in my view Messi should have won the Ballon d’Or because despite of his bad form this season, he managed to come in competition with CR7.” -Muscan Lamsal "The Ballon d'Or should have been awarded to German keeper Manuel Neuer. In a world cup year, the highest priority should have been given to the world cup winner. His fantastic goalkeeping display and his role as an 11th outfielder has been a huge boost to German Team and Bayern Munich. He surely deserved it the most."-Asmit Ojha "Messi was not as good as previous season. His stats were poor than Ronaldo although he made it to the World Cup final. Neuer was fantastic in his job, he won the world cup but it's very rare for GK to win this award until he was really extraordinary."- Manish Dangi Let's sum up the responses in charts: [caption id="attachment_4027" align="aligncenter" width="761"] Photo Courtesy: Abhusan Gautam[/caption]