Rivals embrace tactical voting
LONDON: The voting for the Ballon d’Or has been revealed and once again it was full of tactical voting, with the two frontrunners, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, not picking the other in their top three.
Voting was made by the captain and coach of each Fifa nation, as well as one journalist from each country.
As both Ronaldo (Portugal) and Messi (Argentina) captain their nations, they each got a vote.
The Real Madrid superstar, eventual winner of the award for the second year in a row, made it clear who his friends in football were, giving all three votes to Real Madrid teammates who were never going to challenge him for the gong.
He gave his first choice to Sergio Ramos (giving him five points), picked Gareth Bale second (three points) and Karim Benzema third (one point).
Similarly Messi went for his teammates — former Real Madrid man Angel Di Maria, now at Manchester United, was first, Barcelona stalwart Andres Iniesta was second and Javier Mascherano was third.
Messi no doubt had a word with his national manager Gerardo Martino, who voted for Messi in first, Di Maria in second and Mascherano in third.
Messi was nowhere to be found in Portugal boss Fernando Santos’ top t hree — Ronaldo was t op ahead of rival Manuel Neuer and Arjen Robben.
Ronaldo clearly canvassed Real Madrid and Spain captain Iker Casillas, who snubbed Messi in favour of Ramos and Thomas Mueller, and England skipper Wayne Rooney, who voted Ronaldo first with Toni Kroos and Gareth Bale third.
While Ronaldo and Messi are seen as the two stand out players by most in the world, some captains, managers and media men clearly had other ideas.
Philipp Lahm, Thibaut Courtois, Neuer, James Rodriguez, Robben, Bale and Zlatan Ibrahimovic all received first-choice votes from various voters.
One of the most outlandish votes was made by England manager Roy Hodgson.
Unfortunately for England fans, the man leading the Three Lions voted Mascherano as the best player in the world in 2014.
Now it’s hard to argue that the Barcelona and Argentina man is one of the very best players in the world.
It’s also hard to argue that he had an utterly excellent World Cup, and was probably — even including Messi — Argentina’s most consistent performer in Brazil.
But was Mascherano really the best player in the whole world across the whole of 2014?
Mascherano did get a couple of first-place votes. However, Juventus and France midfielder Paul Pogba received one first-place vote from a journalist from Tahiti.
As for Thailand, national coach Kiatisak Senamuang voted for Ronaldo, Messi and Philipp Lahm, national team captain Adul Lasoh picked Ronaldo, Robben and Mascherano, and journalist Urai Patoommawatana chose Neuer, Ronaldo and Lahm.
Ronaldo eventually won 37.66 percent of the total votes, ahead of Messi in second who won 15.76 percent.
The Barcelona man just shaded Neuer, who had 15.72, while Robben was fourth with 7.17 percent.