It was this time last year that people were truly considering Franck Ribery as the best in the world. Thats right. Ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
A lot of time has passed since then and his name is not thrown around in that discussion very much anymore.
I want to preface this by first acknowledging that Ribery has been injured for periods over the last season and a half. However you would still expect him to be hanging around. Lets check out the stats....
Last season he managed 13 goals and 12 assists in 32 matches, which really is not that bad. However, in the same time Ronaldo managed 48 goals and 13 assists in 41 matches. And Messi grabbed 36 goals and 11 assists in 38 matches. As of right now this looks like a jumble of numbers so lets break it down even more.
2013/14 Season
GPG APG PPG
Ribery 0.41 0.38 0.79
Ronaldo 1.17 0.32 1.49
Messi 0.95 0.29 1.24
So Ribery was 0.45 points off Messi and 0.70 of Ronaldo. This is an extremely large gap between the three. It gets in even worse when you compare Ribery to another similiar Bundesliga player; Roberto Firmino. Firmino's average points per game is actually 0.81, which is 0.02 higher than Ribery.
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Lets get more comparisons....
Roberto Firmino - 0.81
Marco Reus - 0.92
Thomas Muller - 0.67
So when compared to three similar players that very few would ever consider for the Ballon d'Or he barely fits in. Ribery begins to look even worse when you start comparing him to Bale.
Gareth Bale - 0.95
It is obvious that Ribery has never been close to the entirely different stratosphere that Ronaldo and Messi are in. And quite honestly I can't see anyone else getting close for a long, long time.
The lesson is crystal clear, mainstream media clearly never looked at the stats. They might of just seen the match where Ribery destroyed Bundesliga heavyweights Braunschweig.