A survey on the Golden Ball ( French Ballon d'or ) in 1973 was conducted for the eighteenth time. The voting results were published in the number 1447 France Football on December 25, 1973. The jury consisted of 24 sports journalists from the following football associations included in the UEFA : Austria , England , Belgium , Bulgaria , Hungary , East Germany , Greece , Denmark , Ireland , Spain , Italy , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Poland , Portugal , Romania , Turkey , Finland , France , Germany , Czechoslovakia , Switzerland , Sweden and Yugoslavia . Representatives of the USSR were also supposed to send their votes, but France Football said that it did not receive a poll list from this country.
The winner of the vote, for the second time in his career, was the Dutchman Johan Cruyff . He was ahead of Dino Zoff and Gerd Muller in a poll. Cruyff became the first ever Golden Ball holder to change the club during the winning year.
Voting System
Each of the jury members selected five players, who in his opinion were the best players in Europe. The first place got 5 points, the second - four, the third - three, the fourth - two, and the fifth - one point. Thus, there were 360 points in the draw; the maximum player could get 120 points.
Results
| A place | Player | Club | Places | Glasses | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 places | 2 places | 3 places | 4 places | 5 places | Total | ||||
| one | Johan Cruyff | Ajax (Amsterdam) / Barcelona | 15 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 22 | 96 | |
| 2 | Dino zoff | Juventus | 3 | 3 | five | one | 3 | 15 | 47 |
| 3 | Gerd Muller | Bavaria | 2 | five | 2 | 3 | 2 | 14 | 44 |
| four | Franz Beckenbauer | Bavaria | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 9 | thirty | |
| five | Billy Bremner | Leeds United | 2 | 3 | 2 | one | eight | 22 | |
| 6 | Kazimierz Dane | Legia (Warsaw) | 3 | 2 | five | sixteen | |||
| 7 | Eusebio | Benfica (Lisbon) | 2 | one | one | one | five | 14 | |
| eight | Gianni Rivera | Milan | one | 2 | one | four | 12 | ||
| 9 | Gunter Netzer | Borussia (Monchengladbach) / RealMadrid | one | one | one | 3 | eleven | ||
| Ralph Edstrom | Otvidberg / PSV Eindhoven | 2 | 2 | one | five | eleven | |||
| eleven | Uli Höness | Bavaria | one | one | one | 3 | eight | ||
| 12 | Giacinto Facchetti | Inter Milan | one | 2 | 3 | 7 | |||
| Hristo Bonev | Locomotive (Plovdiv) | one | one | one | 3 | 7 | |||
| 14 | Juan Manuel Asensi | Barcelona | one | one | 2 | five | |||
| Sandro Mazzola | Inter Milan | 2 | one | 3 | five | ||||
| Yan Tomashevsky | Одódзь | one | 3 | four | five | ||||
| 17 | Wlodzimierz Luban | Gurnik (Zabrze) | one | one | 2 | four | |||
| 18 | Wolfgang Overath | Koln | one | one | 3 | ||||
| nineteen | Barry Hulshoff | Ajax (Amsterdam) | one | one | 2 | ||||
| Hans-Jürgen Kraishe | Dynamo (Dresden) | one | one | 2 | |||||
| Bobby moore | West Ham United | one | one | 2 | |||||
| Roland Sandberg | Otvidberg / Kaiserslautern | one | one | 2 | |||||
| 23 | Vladislav Bogichevich | Crvena Star | one | one | one | ||||
| Dragan Jaich | Crvena Star | one | one | one | |||||
| Pat jennings | Tottenham Hotspur | one | one | one | |||||
| Denis Lowe | Manchester United / Manchester city | one | one | one | |||||
| Ivo Victor | Dukla (Prague) | one | one | one | |||||