International Sports Awards: Laureus and Ballon d’Or

The correct answer is C, 2000. The awards were established in 1999 by the founders of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, and the first ceremony took place in 2000 at Monte Carlo in Monaco, where Nelson Mandela, the patron of the awards, said that sport has the power to change the world. Option A is wrong because 1996 is the year of the Atlanta Olympic Games and has nothing to do with these awards. Option B is wrong because 1999 is the year the awards were set up, which is the trap this question is built on: the setting up and the first ceremony fall in different years, and papers use one against the other. Option D is wrong because 2004 is the year the International Cricket Council began its own annual awards, including the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy.

The correct answer is A, Nelson Mandela. The first President of a democratic South Africa was the patron of the Laureus awards, and at the opening ceremony in 2000 he said that sport has the power to change the world and to unite people in a way that little else does; the sentence is now printed with the awards. Option B is wrong because Juan Antonio Samaranch was President of the International Olympic Committee and belongs to the Olympic movement, not to Laureus. Option C is wrong because Pele received the first Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 but was a recipient at that ceremony and not its patron, which makes him the strongest distractor here. Option D is wrong because Sebastian Coe is a middle distance runner turned administrator, associated with athletics and with the London Games.

The correct answer is B, Best Sporting Moment. The award went to the scene after India won the World Cup of 2011, when the younger players carried Sachin Tendulkar on their shoulders around the Wankhede ground; the Best Sporting Moment is the one Laureus award decided by a public vote, which is why the Indian following mattered. Option A is wrong because the World Sportsman of the Year is an award for the season just gone and has not come to an Indian cricketer. Option C is wrong because the Lifetime Achievement Award is a separate category whose first recipient was Pele in 2000. Option D is wrong because the Comeback of the Year is given for a return after injury or a long absence, which is not what the 2020 award recognised.

The correct answer is B, France Football. The French magazine France Football created the Ballon d’Or in 1956 on the idea of its editor Gabriel Hanot, and the winner is settled on the votes of journalists, which is what separates it from an award given by a federation. Option A is wrong because L’Equipe is the French sports daily from the same publishing house and is remembered for proposing the European Cup, not the Ballon d’Or. Option C is wrong because World Soccer is a British magazine that runs awards of its own, which are not the Ballon d’Or. Option D is wrong because Marca is a Spanish sports daily that gives the Pichichi trophy to the leading scorer of the Spanish league and the Zamora trophy to the best goalkeeper there.

The correct answer is A, Stanley Matthews. The English winger, then playing for Blackpool and already past forty, received the first Ballon d’Or in 1956, at a time when only European players could be considered. Option B is wrong because Alfredo Di Stefano, the Real Madrid forward, won the award twice later in the nineteen fifties and is the strongest distractor because he dominated that decade. Option C is wrong because Raymond Kopa, the French forward, won in 1958, and his name now belongs to the Kopa Trophy for the best young player. Option D is wrong because Lev Yashin won in 1963 and is remembered for a different reason, as the only goalkeeper ever to take the award, after whom the Yashin Trophy is named.

The correct answer is A, goalkeeper to have won the award. Lev Yashin of the Soviet Union, known as the black spider for his dark jersey and his reach, won the Ballon d’Or in 1963, and no other goalkeeper has taken it since, which is why the trophy for the best goalkeeper of the year, given from 2019, is named the Yashin Trophy. Option B is wrong because several defenders have won the award, among them Franz Beckenbauer and Fabio Cannavaro. Option C is wrong because the award has not gone to a player from Asia, and in any case Yashin was European. Option D is wrong because winning in consecutive years has happened more than once, so it is no distinction peculiar to Yashin.

The correct answer is A, the best young player of the year. The Kopa Trophy was introduced in 2018 and is named after Raymond Kopa, the French forward who won the Ballon d’Or in 1958; its first winner was Kylian Mbappe of France. Option B is wrong because the award for the best goalkeeper is the Yashin Trophy, given from 2019, whose first winner was Alisson Becker of Brazil. Option C is wrong because the leading scorer receives the Gerd Muller Trophy, given from 2021, whose first winner was Robert Lewandowski of Poland. Option D is wrong because the award for the best woman footballer is the Ballon d’Or Feminin, given from 2018, whose first winner was Ada Hegerberg of Norway. Four trophies, four years of introduction: learn them as a set.

The correct answer is A, Ada Hegerberg of Norway. The women’s award was introduced in 2018, more than sixty years after the men’s, and the Norwegian forward, then with Lyon, was its first winner. Option B is wrong because Megan Rapinoe of the United States won the FIFA and Ballon d’Or honours of a later year and is a strong distractor for anyone who remembers the World Cup of 2019. Option C is wrong because Marta of Brazil was named FIFA World Player of the Year several times before the women’s Ballon d’Or existed, which is exactly the confusion the option is placed to create. Option D is wrong because Alexia Putellas of Spain won the award in later years, not in its first year.

The correct answer is C, 2010 to 2015. France Football and FIFA joined their two awards into one for those six years, so the winner of each of those years holds the FIFA Ballon d’Or; the partnership ended and the two awards were given separately again from 2016, when FIFA began The Best FIFA Men’s Player. Option A is wrong because 1991 is the year the FIFA World Player of the Year began, and its first winner was Lothar Matthaus of Germany, but the two awards were then quite separate. Option B is wrong because 2007 is the year the Ballon d’Or was opened to players at clubs anywhere in the world, a different reform. Option D is wrong because 2016 is when the merger ended, not when it ran.

The correct answer is A, the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy. The International Cricket Council began its annual awards in 2004, and the cricketer of the year receives the trophy named after the great all-rounder of the West Indies; the first winner was Rahul Dravid of India, and Sachin Tendulkar, Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli have also received it. Option B is wrong because the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award is for the women’s cricketer of the year, given from 2017. Option C is wrong because the Sir Vivian Richards Trophy is a series trophy rather than an individual award of the year. Option D is wrong because the Don Bradman name is attached to museum honours and to series trophies, not to the ICC award for cricketer of the year.

The correct answer is A, Lothar Matthaus. The German midfielder, captain of the side that won the World Cup of 1990, was the first FIFA World Player of the Year when the award began in 1991; FIFA gave it until 2015, with the Ballon d’Or years of 2010 to 2015 in between, and replaced it with The Best FIFA Men’s Player in 2016. Option B is wrong because Roberto Baggio of Italy won the award in 1993. Option C is wrong because Marco van Basten of the Netherlands won the Ballon d’Or three times in the late nineteen eighties, before this FIFA award existed, which is what makes him a tempting option. Option D is wrong because Romario of Brazil won it in 1994, the year of his World Cup.

The correct answer is A, the FIFA Puskas Award. FIFA introduced it in 2009 for the most beautiful goal of the year, and it is named after Ferenc Puskas of Hungary, the forward of the great side of the nineteen fifties. Option B is wrong because the European Golden Shoe, given since 1968, goes to the leading scorer of the European league season on a points system that weights the different leagues. Option C is wrong because the Gerd Muller Trophy, given at the Ballon d’Or ceremony from 2021, also rewards the number of goals rather than the beauty of one. Option D is wrong because the Pichichi Trophy is the award of the Spanish daily Marca for the leading scorer of the Spanish league, again a matter of counting goals.