By Ollie Irish
The ten-man shortlist for the Golden Boot looks like this (in alphabetical order):
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Nope, no Rooney in there. No sign of any of England’s Golden Generation, in fact. How did this happen?
Anyway, it’s a solid if predictable list. Messi? Hmm, not sure he did enough to get on there, certainly not ahead of more prosaic choices such as Carles Puyol and Dirk Kuyt. And Gyan smacks of a political choice.
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And the very short shortlist for the Young Player of the World Cup award is: Thomas Müller (Germany), Gio dos Santos (Mexico), Andrew Ayew (Ghana). Müller FTW, no contest. Indeed, the young German deserves to be on the main shortlist too.