Diego Forlan won't win the FIFA Ballon d’Or. No, he won't. Like Julius Cesar falling prey to his own pride, India’s population exceeding that of China, you breaking up with your teenage sweetheart, it is inevitable that Forlan will not win the best individual award in football. But he should, and here’s why.

First the statistics. Forlan scored 18 goals in the Spanish Primera Division for Atletico Madrid in 2009-10 and provided six assists in 30 starts. In the Europa League the 31-year-old struck six times. At the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa, the Uruguay international found the net five times in seven matches and directly created one. So far in 2010-11, Forlan has three league goals in six starts.
Ok, one could argue that the number of goals scored is by no means directly proportional to the calibre of the scorer. But if those goals have helped your side to win a major European competition, finish in the top half in what is arguably the most entertaining domestic league on the planet despite a depressingly abysmal start and also led your national team to the semi-finals of the World Cup for the first time in 40 years, then those goals define the player.
Leading Atletico To Glory
Diego Forlan was a consistent figure in Atleti’s march to a ninth-placed finish in La Liga last season and along with Sergio Aguero he was their perennial marksman and goal-getter. For a team that concede with as much delight as a 15-year-old drinks booze at his first party, indeed rescuing the Rojiblancos from the agony of losing every game even while scoring twice is an accomplishment of the highest order.
Forlan scored against Barcelona in both their league games last season and led Atletico to a win in one. Against Real Madrid too, he scored on both occasions and against Valencia at the Vicente Calderon scored twice in their 4-2 win in the league. Big games, big teams and important goals.
Then there was the small matter of leading Atletico to Europa League triumph. It was the Rojiblancos’ first silverware since 1996 when they did the league and cup double in Spain and more intriguingly Forlan was their best player.
The former Manchester United forward scored against Galatasaray away, Valencia away and against Liverpool both home and away. In fact, it was Forlan’s extra-time strike at Anfield that propelled the former Spanish champions to the final, where he netted both the goals against Fulham in their 2-1 triumph.
You could argue that winning the Europa League is not as big an accomplishment as winning the Champions League is and you would be right. But winning anything with Atletico Madrid is as tough as finishing reading War & Peace in one day – virtually impossible. Because Atletico’s history is replete with coming close but not close enough and mainly because they have, or rather had until last season, resigned to their fate of being hopeless losers.
But not only did Atletico win Europe’s second most prestigious club competition, they also almost lifted the Spanish Cup. Atletico didn’t win the Copa del Rey, losing comprehensively to Sevilla in the final at Camp Nou, but once again Forlan was among the goals en route to the finale.
Leading Uruguay To Glory
Then came the World Cup and Forlan won the Golden Ball. Five goals and one assist helped him and so did his performance against South Africa, Ghana, the Netherlands and Germany; he also became the first player since Lothar Matthaeus in 1990 to score three goals from outside the penalty area in one tournament.
As a matter of fact, Forlan was the highest goalscorer in South Africa and could have won the Golden Boot – the problem was that Thomas Mueller, Wesley Sneijder and David Villa each scored five times too and Mueller provided two more assists than he did.
Even so far this season, Forlan has been good (but admittedly not great). With Aguero struggling with injuries, the Uruguayan has been their main targetman and has three goals, with Atletico with eighth in the table.
Hitting The Crossbar
Yet there are certain factors that are against Forlan and one suspects that those will eventually override the ones in his favour. For one, he didn’t win the World Cup and neither did he win the Champions League. The Europa League is considered the bastard brother of the European Cup and, like all poor bastard brothers. are not held in high esteem.
Furthermore, Atletico dropped out of the Champions League group stage last season. Which in essence means that Spain’s third biggest club failed to ‘compete’ in Europe’s biggest club competition. In other words, Forlan failed his team on Europe’s biggest club football stage.
But Wesley Sneijder didn’t and neither did Arjen Robben. While the former was instrumental – probably the key player - in leading Inter to a historic treble last season, the latter led Bayern Munich to the German Bundesliga and the German Cup conquest and also inspired the Bavarians to the final of the European Cup. The duo’s bid to win the Ballon d’Or is augmented by their very impressive performance in the World Cup.
As history depicts, a Ballon d’Or winner in a World Cup year is picked from the squad that actually wins football’s most prestigious international competition. It is, of course, a flawed way to judge a player’s impact over the course of a year or a season – Miroslav Klose always performs over a span of seven or so games at the World Cup but is an Emile Heskey on other occasions – but Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Iker Casillas and David Villa’s names will be touted as the main Ballon d’Or candidates.
Iniesta scored the winning goal in the final against the Netherlands, Xavi excelled for both club and country and besides scoring 21 goals in La Liga, becoming the top scoring Spaniard in Spain’s first division for the fourth season in a row, Villa also netted five times in the World Cup.
But then again, the Netherlands and Spain had teams that were good enough to win the World Cup, Uruguay didn’t. Granted, the Celeste had the luck of the draw and lost to Germany in the third-place play-off, but for a nation that had gone off the radar for long, it was an incredible achievement – and Forlan was at the heart of it.
But something tells this writer that Forlan’s chances to win the Ballon d’Or this year will bounce off the crossbar, just as his free-kick in the final seconds against Germany did.