My choice isn’t going to be the most popular, mainly because the man himself isn’t exactly the best person out there. He played for three different clubs in 2011 as well as represented Canada in international play. He was the MVP of the league he competed in and demonstrated excellent athletic ability time after time.

He is Dwayne De Rosario.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Patrick Chan is a fine choice too. But, like last year when I argued that Georges St. Pierre shouldn’t have been the Athlete of 2010 after competing in just two fights, I can bring up the same for Chan in 2011.

Chan is a fine athlete and great at what he does, but he is a figure skater and 2011 was a non-Olympic year. Chan only competed in five events – even though he did win them all. Many will argue that Chan spends a lot of time training and that should be counted towards his resume, but it’s not like De Rosario just sat around on his couch eating pizza when it wasn’t game time.

While Chan truly competed for one hour (a rough estimate) in 2011, De Rosario was on the pitch for 2,781 minutes. That’s roughly 84 minutes per game, or 24 more minutes per day that Chan competed in total.

Many don’t De Rosario because of his constant contract demands and the fact that he essentially forced his way out of his hometown team, Toronto FC. He was traded from the Reds to the Red Bulls of New York, where he kept up his fine form before again asking for a better contract and was dealt to D.C. United.

But are De Ro’s contract demands really too much? He has proven his worth time and time again and is arguably making hundreds of thousands less than he deserves. It’s just that in MLS, if you want to make the big money, a team has to make you their Designated Player, a tag that no team apparently finds the Canadian midfielder worthy of.

Yet, somehow, he was named the Most Valuable Player in MLS. Would his value decrease if he was getting paid more? Hardly.

His 16 goals in 2011 also earned him the Golden Boot for leading the league (although he was tied with Chris Wondolowski) and his 12 assists were fourth best.

Oh, and during his spare time in the summer, he found time to captain Team Canada at the Gold Cup, so he has that going for him too. How many other athletes can actually say they did that in their sports in 2011? Not too many unless you count the world juniors team who choked away gold or the second-rate tournament teams.

With Canada, he was unable to lead the team out of the group stages in the Gold Cup, but did help them advance to the next round of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. He also tied Dale Mitchell for the all-time lead in international goals for Canada when he netted his 19th in November.

Patrick Chan may have been the easy answer for 2011, but Dwayne De Rosario was the correct one.

Follow me on Twitter @danbilicki

To put that in perspective with other soccer stars, Chelsea defender reportedly makes around $13 million a year, Barcelona superstar makes $15.1 million per year and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo makes an estimated $17.3 million. But apparently Anzhi feels that Eto’o is worth more than all of them.

Eto’o is a fine player, but he’s not the best in the world, even at his own position. He’s certainly not worth one of the biggest contracts in all of sports. He’s also 30-years-old, an age where most soccer players start to see a huge decline in their production.

This also comes after Anzhi threw $38.9 million Inter Milan’s way to buy the Cameroon striker and three-time Champions League winner.

The team is owned by Suleiman Kerimov, an oil tycoon who ranks as the 118th richest person in the world, being valued at $7.8 billion.

Also, don’t worry about Eto’o and his new teammates having to live Makhachkala, an area plagued by violence over the past two years. The entire team lives and trains in Moscow, only heading to their “home” stadium for matches. The distance between Makhachkala and Moscow? It’s only about 1,250 miles. Talk about a long commute to work.

No, that is because “Leo” is only seven-years-old. Yes, the Spanish soccer superpower has now started to recruit preteens from Argentina in their never-ending quest to better Barcelona.

I’m sure that Coira is a splendid player for his age and with proper training, he could become a star some day. Heck, Lionel Messi was signed out of Argentina as a 13-year-old and played for Barca at 16, so there is a bit of precedence behind this sort of move. But Coira is almost young enough to be named after the 24-year-old superstar.

I just can’t wait for this trend to evolve and we see lines on ESPNsoccernet like: “Inter Milan sign Hope Solo’s unborn child to a development deal.

Or “Chelsea sign John Terry’s illegitimate infant child.”

It’s only really a matter of time. Would you be surprised if tomorrow the L.A. Galaxy signed all of David Beckham’s sons? Or would they have too much competition from overseas clubs?

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In three games, Canada didn’t earn a point and could only score one goal – even if it was a decent one off of a set piece. That is, of course, a terrible result for any team in a major tournament, but the fact is that Canada is ranked No. 6 in the world and was one of the favourites to win the World Cup. That’s what makes this such a disappointment.

It might actually be the most disappointing result of a Canadian national team ever. Well, maybe if you look past the men’s hockey performance at the Turin Olympics in 2006.
The team opened up against Germany, ranked No. 2 in the world and also hosting the World Cup. Getting a result was a tricky proposition to begin with, but at least Canada showed up and came close to a draw after a late Christine Sinclair goal. It was all downhill from there.

France, No. 7 in the world, completely destroyed our girls. Canada played little defence and couldn’t even muster a shot on goal. The 4-0 defeat could have actually been a lot worse.

Then came Tuesday’s finale against Nigeria, a game in which the most exciting part for the Canadian women may have been the power outage at the stadium. The African nation is ranked 27 in the world, which, in case you’re bad at math, is 21 rungs on the ladder lower than Canada. Again, the defence looked atrocious and again, sadly, the score line could have been a lot worse – Nigeria hit the woodwork twice, Canada once.

It’s time that everyone realizes that there’s more than one sport in Canada. Being good at ice hockey is fine, but it’s coming at the expense of our national pride. There’s a joke that goes something like this…

“Why were the Winter Olympics created? So that Canada and Norway could actually win some medals.”

Let’s try competing at team sports year-round, people.

Follow me on Twitter @danbilicki

There’s no question that De Rosario can be a good, dynamic attacking player, but he’s now 33-years-old and on the downside of his playing career. His repeated demands to be making the big bucks will continually fall on deaf ears while proven players from Europe will come over and take up teams’ valuable DP slots.

De Ro may be worth than he is making, but it’s hard to justify seeing a team lock him up one of those prized slots – and for that big amount of money – when there are better options available.

The best that De Rosario could possibly do is head over to Europe and ply his trade there. If he makes an impact in a top-tier league overseas, there’s no question he can start earning the money that he believes he deserves. Until then, he’ll just continue to be a good player in MLS, one notch below the upper echelon of footballers.

Follow me on Twitter @dbilicki