The level of anti-Cristiano Ronaldo sentiment should not be underestimated, though if you ever find yourself thinking it weak consider reports out of Italy saying Real Madrid goaltender Iker Casillas and Liverpool striker Fernando Torres are favorites for the Ballon d’Or.

The Ballon d’Or, or Golden Ball, is given by France Football to the player voted by media as the best football in the world for the preceding year. AC Milan’s Kaká is the current holder of the award and for much of the season Cristiano Ronaldo (left) was considered either the likely winner (by his supporters) or the favorite. The reports out of Italy, based on a research done on the award’s voters, now paints a different picture.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s accomplishments of the last year have been well documented. Fernando Torres also had had an incredible season, and although I seem to have slightly less regard for Casillas than most, people who know a lot more than I do about the sport have given him tremendous credit for Real Madrid’s success last season.

Beyond any accomplishments Torres or Casillas had during their club seasons, the capper to their Ballon D’Or resumé seems to be Spain winning Euro 2008. That is where I see the breakdown in logic behind their candidacies of the award.

If you grant that Ronaldo was generally considered to be the favorite for the Ballon d’Or at the end of the club season, the issue becomes whether the Euro 2008 performance of Torres or Casillas was sufficient to bridge the gap to Ronaldo. For now, let’s just set aside the idea of defining what that gap was, and let’s also grant the Ronaldo’s one goal in three games at Euro for Portugal did nothing to widen that gap.

Torres, until he scored the winning goal in the final, was generally derided for having a disappointing tournament, a view I completely disagree with (I named him to my best XI for the tournament). He was being substituted in each match, and while some questioned whether that was wise of Spain coach Luis Aragones, others advocated giving Daniel Guiza, Torres’s replacement, a greater role. While Torres may have decreased the distance between him and Ronaldo, this is not a performance that should seal a Ballon d’Or.

Then there is Casillas (left), who I also named to my Euro 2008 XI. Casillas’s shining moment was the penalty shootout win over Italy, but beyond that he was untested. The ten players Spain had in front of him made it a rather boring tournament for Spain’s captain, the pre-kicks Italy match included. Was that performance against Italy enough to bridge his gap to Ronaldo?

Whether you think Torres or Casillas deserve the award, you should allow that the shift in opinion that has occurred over the last two months may be more about Ronaldo than what either of these players has done. Perhaps people have grown weary of the Real Madrid speculation. That’s understandable. Perhaps the voters look unfavorably on his style and the various idiosyncrasies of his game. That is also understandable, but it is not fair to use these things as reason for an abrupt change regarding the Ballon d’Or. Ronaldo, being the front-runner for this award for so long, has been analyzed and scrutinized in a way Torres and Casillas have been able to avoid. To withhold a vote for him because of that scrutiny can not be fair unless you wait six months to cast the vote and, during that time, hold Torres and Casillas to the same standards.

That basic unfairness is not the only problem I have with the Casillas and Torres candidacies. How did these two players get singled out to benefit from Ronaldo’s falling star? It’s an easy question to answer: They are the players from the Spain team who best fit the standards for this award. That reasoning, however, ignores a Spain squad who’s defining trait was team-wide success - a kind of success that does not translate onto this kind of individual award. How can you single out Torres or Casillas when you consider how Marcos Senna, Sergio Ramos, David Villa, Carles Puyol, and David Silva played?

And why is this being restricted to only Spanish players? If we are going to reconsider Ronaldo’s claim to the award, we should not let the achievement of a Spain side ill-suited towards individual recognition limit the candidates. When you compare Casillas’s resume to that of Manchester United goalie Edwin van der Sar, who looks better? Both won their club league, and while Casillas’s health during the season is a point in his favor (van der Sar missed time during Manchester United’s season with injuries), van der Sar and club had more competition (from Chelsea) for their title. Van der Sar also had a much harder time of it in the Champions League than Casillas had in Euro 2008. Until the Netherlands was eliminated from Euro, van der Sar had outplayed Casillas and been one of the best goaltenders in Euro.

Why isn’t Michael Ballack being considered? He was Chelsea and Germany’s best player and was a decisive force whenever he was on the pitch. Ballack continuously scored big goals down the stretch of Chelsea’s Premiership and Champions League campaigns, had another huge goal in Euro 2008 against Portugal, and established himself as a fixture in any best midfielder in the world conversation.

Van der Sar. Ballack. Casillas or Torres. It doesn’t matter. If the stories are true, this award has become less about who will win it than making sure Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t win.

I hope after the award is given, this article looks reactionary; however, I doubt I would have bothered writing it if I thought Ronaldo was still the favorite to win the award.

If you have any questions or comments about the article, you can email the author here or leave your comment, below.