Clean Sweep

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi
The biggest surprise to emerge from FIFA's latest Ballon d'Or Awards - is not that Lionel Messi won the Player of the Year - for an unprecedented fourth (consecutive) year in a row - but that the FIFA Team of the Year was drawn entirely from the Spanish League.

Here's the eleven players chosen for FIFA's team of the year - 5 from Barcelona, 5 from Real Madrid and 1 from Athletico Madrid - a quite remarkable and unique clean sweep, as far as I know.

•Iker Casillas (Real Madrid)

•Dani Alves (Barcelona)

•Gerard Pique (Barcelona)

•Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)

•Marcelo (Real Madrid)

•Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)

•Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid)

•Xavi (Barcelona)

•Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)

•Radamel Falcao (Atletico Madrid)

•Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

As for Lionel Messi and his four-in-a-row triumph the little Argentinian deserved nothing less - after breaking the great German striker Gerd Muller's record of scoring 85 goals in a single season.

Gerd Muller's record had stood since 1972 - for a whole footballing generation or maybe even two - until Messi came along forty years later and rattled in a truly incredible 91 goals in 2012. 

The only person complaining about Lionel Messi winning the award again was Jose Mourinho - but he's such a bad sport these days he makes Sir Alex Ferguson sound like a good loser.

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