Cristiano Ronaldo was voted as the winner of the inaugural Best Fifa Men’s Player award on Monday, beating out arch-rival Lionel Messi to the gong, but for whom did the world’s two best players vote on the ballot?
Messi and Ronaldo both cast votes in their capacity as captains of their respective national teams, but as it turned out, they didn’t vote for one another.
As with the Ballon d’Or vote last year, Messi once again went for his three Barcelona team-mates – Luis Suarez, Neymar and Andres Iniesta, in that order.
Ronaldo changed it up somewhat and went for Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Sergio Ramos this time round.
The captain, coach and one media member from each national federation were allowed a vote, and various interesting voting patterns have surfaced.
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* England captain Wayne Rooney voted for Ronaldo, Suarez and Jamie Vardy, although he received no votes himself.
* Vardy received four first place votes – from a member of the Vanuatu media contingent, the coach of Chinese Taipei, as well as the captain and coach of Turks and Caicos.
* His Leicester team-mate Riyad Mahrez – who was voted African player of the year last week – received votes from reporters from Algeria and Cuba, as well as the Palestine coach.
* Only the Sweden captain Andreas Granqvist and coach Jan Andersson voted for Zlatan Ibrahimovic first.
* Mesut Ozil, Paul Pogba and Sergio Aguero received only one first-place vote each, from Kyrgyzstan’s coach, a Lesotho reporter and a reporter from Grenada, respectively.
* Alexis Sanchez received support from far and wide – his national coach Juan Antonio Pizzi voted only for him and abstained from the other votes, while the coaches of Samoa and American Samoa also voted for the Arsenal ace.
* France captain Hugo Lloris and coach Didier Deschamps both voted for Antoine Griezmann first, but the third vote from the French contingent went to Ronaldo.
* The Wales representatives all voted for Bale, as did several others, including the captain of Grenada and the coaches of India, South Korea, the Maldives, Montserrat, and the Republic of Ireland.
Source: KweseFreeSports
