The coaches who are likely to be eliminated in early rounds are Villas-Boas and Wenger. Both their teams have suffered humiliating losses this season and are not in the top three of their respective leagues. Ferguson will most likely also be eliminated after a humiliating home loss in the Manchester Derby against Manchester City. (Is it too late to add Roberto Mancini to this list?).
Others may be hurt by the overwhelming talent they possess, creating a situation in which it is easier to attribute success to players. This situation is likely to hurt Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and Vicente del Bosque with the overwhelming amount of Spanish players also being Balon d’Or candidates.
That leaves four candidates vying for attention: Garcia, Loew, Tabarez and Klopp.
Garcia sure looks to deserve it, resurrecting careers while dominating French soccer, but Lille may be too anonymous a position for the voters. That is something that could also hurt Klopp, who revitalized a Borussia Dortmund mainly with young talent and made it a protagonist in the Bundesliga. Klopp may also be hurt by a dominant Bayern Munich stealing attention.
That leaves Tabarez and the forever controversial Uruguayan team. Seeing as the award is on 2011, and not 2010, his nomination will likely be relying on the Copa America title and not the controversial World Cup campaign.
Tabarez definitely deserves the recognition for revitalizing Uruguayan football to its earlier glory, while displacing Brazil and Argentina to becoming the unquestionable king of South America.
But there will be persistent questions about the quality of competition. Brazil and Argentina seem to be living a small crisis, opening up the way for Uruguay.
Tabarez will also be hurt by the Eurocentric view of many voters (only one coach and one player, Neymar, based in America made the respective short list of candidates) that may be willing to overvalue success in Europe. It is also unlikely for national team coaches to win this title in a non-World Cup year.
Tabarez seems to have the overwhelming support of the public which, would rather attribute the success to him than to popular villain Luis Suarez.
It would be refreshing to see a non-European win, both for coaches and players, as there has definitely been great drama and accomplishments throughout the globe this year.
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