Messi is a winner and other things we already knew.

Well, Messi was as gracious as ever in recieving the Ballon d'Or award, thanking his teammates, including  Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández who he actually beat to the award, at the awards ceremony in Zurich. In other awards, Barcelona's rivals Real Madrid coach José Mourinho recieved the World Coach of the Year award for his work with Inter Milan last year. Meanwhile, the Women's World Player of the Year award was won by Brazil's Marta for the fifth time in successsion, despite the likes of German greats Inka Grings and Birgit Prinz also being in the running. Also, the Puskás Award for 2010's best goal was taken by Hamit Altıntop of Turkey for his strike against Kazakhstan in a EURO 2012 qualifying round victory in September. Obviously, other people will have their own opinions but that's the decision! Finally, the World XI team's full lineup is as follows: Iker Casillas of Real Madrid in goal; Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué of Barcelona in defense with Lucio and Maicon of Inter Milan also in defense; Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández of Barcelona in midfield alongside Wesley Sneijder of Inter Milan and  Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid; Lionel Messi and David Villa both of Barcelona were the final members of the squad as well. On the domestic front really quickly, in Italy, Napoli put three in against Juventus without reply thanks to the talents of Edinson Cavani, AC Milan and Udinese tied 4-4 with Alexis Sánchez, Antonio Di Natale (who scored two goals,) and German Denis all racking up at least one apiece for the away side. AC Milan on the other hand had Alexander Pato score two goals, Medhi Benatia scored an own goal, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring a fourth. In Spain, Real Madrid showed Villarreal who was boss, putting in four goals against their two to give the Madrid side a vital three points to stay close to Barcelona. Cristiano scored a hat-trick with two goals in the first half and another in the second while Kaka scored one of his own. Villarreal were helped with goals from Cani and Marco Ruben in the first half but to no avail.